Wolf in the Making
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM preslash, sequel to "The Mark of the Fox." Harry struggles to resist the slavery Draco has inflicted on him, and Draco struggles to win over Harry. Neither struggle will turn out as they've expected. COMPLETE.
1. Before the Storm

**Title: **Wolf in the Making

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco preslash, heading towards slash

**Warnings: **Profanity, angst, slavery, dark!Draco, violence, torture, non-major character death.

**Rating: **R

**Summary: **Sequel to "The Mark of the Fox." As Harry and Draco plan to take down the man who betrayed both of them, Harry struggles against the slavery that Draco's Mark imposes on him and Draco struggles to make Harry submit to him. Neither struggle is going to turn out as they expected.

**Author's Notes:** As noted above, this is the second in what I'm calling my Fox and Wolf series, which will eventually be four stories. This follows "The Mark of the Fox," and you really should read it first or you won't know what's going on in this one. This particular fic will be either eight or nine parts long; I'm not sure yet.

**Wolf in the Making**

_Chapter One—Before the Storm_

Harry knew there were eyes on him. There always were.

He hadn't yet seen why he should change his behavior to accommodate that fact.

He stood beside a small pool towards the northern edge of Fox Valley, practicing the exercises that he had gone through every morning for three years, when he was still an Auror trainee. He had taken them up again since Draco Malfoy, the bastard who called himself the Fox, had put a Mark on his arm and bound him here. Harry wanted to be prepared for anything that might come along, and staying alert and flexible would help with that.

He stretched first, extending his arms over his head and his legs in front of him, then lunging and twisting to the side to force his bones and muscles to their limits. Then he did several push-ups and spinning kicks, followed by a few moments of quiet staring in each direction. The theory his Auror trainers had taught him was that, with his blood up and adrenaline surging the way it would be in the middle of battle, he was more likely to teach his eyes to notice small details.

He wasn't sure it always worked, but the smallest advantage could help here.

_The smallest advantage is what you have._

Harry snarled silently to himself, and could have sworn that he felt a chuckle in his head. He didn't pay attention. He _forbade _himself to care. He went on twisting and kicking and stretching, making the boulder beside the pond the center of his activity. As long as someone didn't force him to stop, he wouldn't.

That was the whole philosophy of his stay here, the philosophy by which he intended to survive subjection to a man who could control him with pleasure and pain, summon him with a thought and make his arm burn with the image of a stylized running fox. He was not going to give up. He was not going to give in.

Malfoy wanted him whole and willing. If he broke Harry, he would destroy one of his dearest desires. On the other hand, if he tried to slowly coax Harry around to his side instead of coercing him, he would leave Harry capable of rebellion.

Either way, Harry was going to win.

* * *

Draco leaned against the side of the small house he'd had built here, as shelter for Potter when he realized that Potter preferred this meadow above all others. Probably because this place was at the very edge of Draco's domain and he wanted to get as far away as he could, pretending indignantly all the while that he wasn't a slave.

_You could be more than a slave, _Draco whispered in his mind to Potter.

If Potter felt the thought, he didn't let it distract him. In fact, the way he leaped into the air and aimed a kick at the air just then was more graceful, more attractive, than anything he had done so far.

Draco shook his head. He thought Potter was trying to make himself look dangerous, too dangerous to bother trying to tame. He believed Draco would let him go if he seemed like a bad enough servant.

_It is too bad that all the methods he uses to try and convince me not to bother show off his strength and beauty and power, and make him all the more desirable to possess._

Draco waited until Potter sat down on the boulder and began to stretch his legs again, a sign the show was over. Then he approached, gliding over the grass, the pale cloak that he had chosen to wear today flapping behind him. The meadow was a pretty enough place, he had to admit, cloaked with thick spiky green and a wash of pure yellow grass, but he could have offered Potter far more inside the walls of one of his houses.

Potter lifted his head and stared at him, as unimpressed as always. Draco smiled back. He got hard when Potter looked at him that way: steady, bright, hateful. Potter hadn't yet seemed to notice. Draco hoped he would soon.

"You've done enough for today," Draco said. He kept his voice soft, because Potter always reacted badly when it was the chiding or bullying tone that worked best with his other Marked ones. "Come with me and have something to eat."

Potter showed the barest hesitation before he nodded curtly and moved forwards to walk beside Draco. Draco considered whether he could take that as a sign of yielding, and decided, regretfully, that it wasn't possible. Potter had a grain of stubborn sense in him. He had decided not to pick a fight over something so trivial, that was all.

"You're doing well conditioning yourself, my wolf," Draco said. "Did the Ministry teach you all of that?"

Potter's shoulders tightened, as always, when Draco gave him the pet name, but he answered, "Some of it."

"I doubt that all Aurors can do it as gracefully as you can, even if they know the majority of the moves." Draco kept his voice as feathery as the stroke of magic that he sent through the Mark. Potter resisted the brutal assaults of bliss Draco had counted on to tame him at first. But it was possible, just possible, that he might not notice the gentle pleasure Draco gave him this way. It would sneak past his defenses and become an accepted part of his mornings, of his days.

Draco knew what the alternation of pain and pleasure could do to a human mind, but Potter had known too much pain to be as affected as some of Draco's other Marked ones. Kindness was the way to reach him, caresses and praise and words about his "crimes" not being his fault.

All human beings, in Draco's experience, wanted to believe that they were good people, unless they had Draco's rare strength of mind and iron will. Potter thrived on a martyr complex, but offered the chance to accept something else, he would.

And then he would be Draco's.

Potter gave him a hard smile. "You should remember that Aurors often know more than they seem to, Malfoy. That will be a hard lesson for you to learn until someone arrests you, I should think. Some people never manage to absorb that they aren't the best at a particular skill."

Draco controlled his immediate angry reaction. "Remember that we're raiding the Ministry soon, Harry," he said at last. He didn't think of Potter by his first name, but saying it had two advantages: it ought to open him up and it made Draco seem softer than he really was. "You ought to tell me everything you know, so that we stand more chance of surviving the raid in the first place."

Potter turned his head away and said nothing, his dark hair acting like a curtain for his expression, in much the same way that Professor Snape's often had. Draco smoothed his feelings down into a ripple of dark water. Really, he had dealt with harder challenges than this, especially when he had possessed a new Marked one for less than a week. He should not lose control of his temper so quickly or easily.

But there was the fact that he had never possessed someone he desired so much, or someone who could resist him so easily.

_Patience, _Draco told himself. There were many chains that someone like Potter wore, chains that he could tug on even as he tried to build the idiot's self-esteem up and lessen his martyr complex. Potter could have fled the valley when Draco had first started attacking him, but he had stayed because he wanted to save the people in the resort that Draco drained magic from, and perhaps his other Marked ones. As long as Draco held that power—and he had no interest in letting it go—Potter would ultimately bend to his will.

_But I want so much more than that. _

His mother would say that he was whinging. Draco focused his gaze on Potter again and asked, "Is there any weakness in the Ministry wards that you feel like mentioning to me?"

A muscle relaxed in Potter's jaw and then hardened again. He had a particular nervous little jerk of his head that he used when he was trying to get out of answering, and he used it now. Draco sent another imperceptible trickle of magic through the Mark, this time using it to soothe Potter, calm his mind and urge it towards obedience.

"You could bypass them other ways to get into Robards's office," Potter said at last, lowly. "You don't _need _the information about the wards."

"But I want it," Draco said, smiling, giving his voice an edge.

"You don't get everything you want."

_There _it was, the flash of challenge in the green eyes that never failed to make Draco hard and angry at the same time. He flicked his fingers, and Potter flinched before he could stop it. He knew Draco used that gesture to send pain through the Mark, usually the pain of a broken bone.

It took him a moment to realize that nothing had happened this time. He straightened up slowly, his face bright with its flush. Draco turned his head to the side in acknowledgment and mockery, and then said, "Oh, I may have to wait for what I want. But it comes to my hand like a tame dove. Eventually."

Potter's face was passionate with hatred. But he said, as slowly as if Draco had truly tortured the words out of him, "Fine. I'll tell you how to get through the wards around Robards's office. But you don't get more than that."

"I know how to wait," Draco said, sketching a little bow before he turned and loped to the edge of the meadow. He had business to conduct; not _every _moment of the day could be spent on trying to ruffle Potter or smooth away his peculiarities. He did pause and say over his shoulder, "Make sure you eat."

The force of Potter's eyes was like a refreshing wind against his back as he left for the office.

* * *

"I don't understand why you resist him. You must know what it will come to in the end."

"Hello, Lisa," Harry said, not bothering to look over his shoulder as he tucked his shirt in. He had hated, at first, the habit the other Marked ones had of entering his rooms without knocking, but he had discovered he hated Malfoy too much to spare more than irritation for them. Besides, none of them had ever tried to hurt him since Malfoy had started his attempt to commit slow suicide. He turned around and took the plate of food from her hands, giving her an even look. "And no, I don't know."

Lisa Baines shook her head and sat down on the chair beside Harry's bed. Harry sat on the bed itself, keeping an eye on her as he began to work his way through the porridge, strawberries, and toast thick with butter that she'd brought.

Lisa was the first of Draco's Marked ones that he'd met—she'd been sent to escort him in when he first came to Fox Valley—and the one he got on best with. She had a lightness in her limbs and her balance that never left her, the coordinated grace of a trained fighter. Harry had had time since his enslavement to learn that she was deadlier with her hands and feet than a wand. She was probably the most intelligent of the Marked ones, too, and the only one besides Harry who sometimes looked at Malfoy with hatred.

For all of that, she was resigned to her position here, and it drove Harry mad.

"He will break you," she said now, and her voice was quiet but her eyes sharp. "The resistance only makes the process takes longer, and makes it hurt more in the end."

Harry refused to respond. He had a mouthful of buttered toast, and it broke crisply and covered his tongue with sweetness and warmth. There was no reason for him to hurry through his food. One of the few pleasures he had discovered in the last week was that he could linger when he ate, since he had no need to tear through a meal on the way to the next case, as he would have if he still worked in the Ministry.

"You're intelligent," Lisa said. She leaned forwards, which made her sheaves of brown hair tumble past her ears. Impatiently, she tucked them back again. She used spells in battle that made her hair stay still, Harry remembered. "You have a sense of humor. And you're a good fighter. I would hate to lose your company as soon as I've found it."

Harry shook his head and finished one of the strawberries, absently wishing that he had some cream, before he responded. "You won't. He's not going to let me go _that _easily. If you were right and I'd break, the process would still take a long time."

Lisa sighed. "Do you ever stop thinking of yourself as special, an exception to the rules that pertain to everyone else?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "When I find a way that I'm normal, I'll let you know."

He saw the reluctant smile Lisa produced before she turned her face away and stood. Harry concealed a smile of his own with another piece of toast. He didn't hold out much hope of encouraging the other Marked ones to rebel—they'd had plenty of chances before he'd come along, and it wasn't as though he was a natural leader—but even a bit of company in his ambitions made him feel less alone.

And he had been alone, not only in Fox Valley but before that, after Ron and Hermione had moved to Australia. And the Head Auror had hated him without Harry even realizing that he did so, enough to send Harry off to Fox Valley with no warning about what he would find there.

Harry moved his shoulders in an impatient shrug. He wasn't going to get closer to the goal of his freedom by thinking bad thoughts about his best friends, and he always thought bad thoughts about Robards, encouraged by Malfoy.

Then he paused, in between one spoonful of porridge and the next.

An idea had come to him, a fragile, fluttering thing. At the moment, Harry saw no way that he would put it into operation. But it was still more than he'd had before.

And there _was _a way to make it work, wasn't there? Harry licked his lips, his heart pounding. Yes, that way was dangerous, but Harry thought he could get what he wanted if he was careful and patient and worked at it.

If he pretended to give Malfoy what he wanted.

"What's that look on your face? You're turning something over in your mind, and it's probably going to hurt you."

Harry blinked and glanced over. "Have you got that used to me?" he asked lightly, to cover the way he immediately tensed up. Lisa might pity him, might like him, but Harry couldn't forget that she was one of the ones broken to her long slavery and to obedience to Malfoy. "My best friends had trouble telling when I was about to go dashing into a risk, or I wouldn't have been able to do it as often."

Lisa's eyes were narrow, and she didn't smile. "I told you that I value your presence," she said. "And I have seen ways in which Lord Malfoy can torture us and yet not make us die."

Harry snorted. "I've felt the pain through the Mark, and I've survived. I told him that I would fight it if he used it again, until it drove me mad, and he hasn't used it since."

"This isn't pain," Lisa said.

"Oh? Tell me what, then."

Lisa hesitated for long moments. Harry wondered if she was loyal enough to Malfoy to protect his secrets, but when she finally bowed her head and her cheeks flushed, with her voice dropping to a mumble, he understood. She was embarrassed.

"He's a Legilimens," she said. "He possesses the ability to tuck us into our worst memories, to make us live them over again. I think that's a combination of his Legilimency and his Mark. I would not wish that on anyone. I woke from my worst moment with wetness spreading around me. I will leave it up to you to imagine what the wetness was."

Harry set the tray aside and went over to touch her shoulder. She started back, and then looked at him with narrowed eyes again.

"Thank you for telling me about that," Harry said, trying to convey with his gaze and voice that he knew how hard that had been for her. "I'll be prepared for the tactic, but—can't you _see_? Can't you _see_ that you need to resist someone who would do that to you?" His voice soared, and Lisa looked over her shoulder, though Harry knew Malfoy wasn't looking out of the observation lens on the wall right now. There was always a flicker of magic about it, no matter how subtle, when he was, and it was dead.

"I'm a survivor," Lisa said. "I would rather continue living than do something that I know would get me killed."

Harry shook his head. "I don't think he would kill me," he said with dull certainty. He bit his tongue so that he wouldn't say something he didn't mean to, and then continued, "He wants me too much."

Lisa tilted her head to the side. "Yes, and it's personal, isn't it? He claimed the rest of us because we had unique talents that he thought could serve him, and he believed that we weren't being ambitious enough in the use of those talents. But no one could argue that you were doing something small or unimportant by serving in the Aurors. He wants you for other reasons."

Harry nodded. "And if my only choice comes down to suicide before I serve him, then that's what will happen." He raised an eyebrow at Lisa, who looked shaken. "Tell him that, if you're spying for him."

Lisa sighed and left the room without saying another word. Harry returned to his tray, although the porridge had grown cold.

He would have to play this carefully, he thought. He would say the things he really felt but _act _as though the constant attempts at seduction and gifts by Malfoy were ruining his resolve. Malfoy would fall for the pretense if Harry did it well enough. Harry had discovered down the years that people were always more vulnerable to deception if it confirmed their prejudices, and Malfoy wanted to think of Harry as weak—or, at best, strong enough to make a good prize, but not strong enough to resist him.

Dangerous. But there was no course open to him now that wasn't, except to do exactly as Malfoy wanted, and that would be dangerous to his soul and his morals.

Harry smiled and took a spoonful of porridge. He knew the perfect first step to begin.

* * *

Draco lifted his head and frowned, touching the place on his arm that would bear a Mark if he had one. He had been working late in his office, drifting in that trance-like state where he could get more paperwork accomplished than in any other. This was mostly handling reservations for Fox Valle. The process Draco used to drain the magic of his guests and store it for his own use would addict them to the place, and keep them coming back for as long as it pleased him to offer them room. When they had been away long enough, their magic would have replenished itself, and he could drain them again.

A self-sustaining power source. That had been the part of his scheme that he was the most proud of, second only to trapping Harry Potter, an opportunity he couldn't have foreseen would arise when he began this.

But now a tingle of anxiety rang through him, as though he were hearing the echoes of a distant gong. That had happened before when one of his Marked ones was in pain or trouble and Draco hadn't known it right away because he hadn't already been following them.

He closed his eyes and paid more attention to the resonance. The Mark didn't exist on his skin, no, but it was made by his will as well as the wooden fox he had constructed to represent him, and that made it the easiest way to contact and pay attention to his subordinates.

He understood almost at once. Someone was having a nightmare, one bad enough that they were twisting in mental anguish.

Potter.

The chance was too good to resist. Draco stood up and glided out his door.

When he reached Potter's house, he could hear the muffled cries that escaped the Silencing Charms. Draco took a moment to cast a spell that would prevent Potter from casting any more of those, and then stepped inside.

Potter had refused most of the luxuries that Draco had tried to offer him, for no reason that Draco could discern. His sleeping room held only a bed, one table, and a few chairs as well as the observation lens. He had thrown off the blankets and was writhing with short, yelping cries that reminded Draco of a kicked dog.

Draco held out his arms and embraced Potter, running a tingle of pleasure through the Mark at the same time to wake him up. "I'm here," he said softly, as Potter started back to wakefulness.

"What?" Potter whispered. "Where's the fire?"

Draco nodded. He understood now. Potter had come to Fox Valley in the first place at Robards's instigation, but he _believed _he had come because of a Ministry-mandated holiday. He had accidentally caused a roof to fall in on two people he was trying to rescue from a fire, and then Apparated out because of his training and instincts instead of staying to rescue them. Potter blamed himself unnecessarily for it, and obsessed over the guilt in quite a tiresome fashion.

But Draco could use it now. "There's no fire," he whispered. "There's only me." He rocked Potter back and forth, slowly, wondering as he did it how many times Potter had ever had this done for him.

Potter's pain, flowing through Draco's arm, eased, and he sighed. Then he whispered, "I want these nightmares to go _away._"

Draco closed his eyes as sweet triumph flooded him. Potter must be only half-awake, or he would never have said something so revealing, but Draco had every intention of taking advantage.

"They don't have to," he said soothingly. "I can put a guard in your mind against such things. It will block all such images and only allow through the dreams that your mind can produce which have nothing to do with memories."

Potter went rigid in his arms, and then began to push free.

Draco released him, unable to keep the content look off his face. "Do let me know if you change your mind," he said, and bowed, and left the room at an unhurried pace.

Potter had resisted, yes. He had tried to be independent, as was expected of him.

But he had hesitated first. It was a pause of five seconds that no one else might have noticed or known how to interpret if they had, but Draco did.

_He was thinking about it. His pain torments him._

_He is yielding._

* * *

Harry lay back down, his heartbeat calming. As it turned out, the fear he had felt that Malfoy would discover what he was up to was an excellent substitute for the fear Malfoy would have expected if he'd really had the nightmare, and he only had to think about his memories to produce pain and guilt strong enough to summon Malfoy.

He had pretended to consider Malfoy's offer. And Malfoy had fallen for it. It was there in the lazy way he smiled, in the way his hand had lingered on Harry's shoulder for an instant, in the slowness of his bow.

_He's falling for it._


	2. The Most Dangerous Dance

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Two—The Most Dangerous Dance_

Harry sat on the boulder after he finished his morning exercises for a long time, eyes shut. Malfoy hadn't come to observe him today. Maybe that was because Harry had disrupted his business last night.

Maybe he had the sense to realize that, if he was really winning Harry over, pressing his company on him too soon would make him start back.

Harry grimaced and stretched his arms over his head again, twisting back and forth without rising from his place. It was exhausting trying to think like a Dark Lord. He hadn't had to _understand _Voldemort, most of the time. That had been simple. He just wanted to rule the world and kill everyone who was connected to Harry.

But Malfoy thought. He took pride in making his plans subtle and complex, not because he was mad like Voldemort and couldn't think in straight lines, but just for the fun of it. And he had goals that Harry suspected he would never entirely understand. Vengeance, sure, but Malfoy accumulated power and wealth and even slaves for—

For what?

_You can do this, _Harry told himself sternly. _You've thought like Dark wizards before in order to capture or outwit them. You can do this._

Here, though, the consequences were worse than just watching the commendation that should have been his for the capture go to someone else. Malfoy would hurt him, possibly kill him, if Harry did something wrong. And then he would be free to hurt his other Marked ones and the people he held captive in the Valley as well.

A shiver of disgust slid down Harry's spine. _Perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to condemn him for that last part, given what my ultimate escape plan is._

But distracting himself with thoughts like that would do no good. As wrong as Malfoy was in general, he had given Harry one new thing to think about that he agreed with: he spent too much time wallowing in guilt and not enough time coming up with plans to help people.

As long as Malfoy concentrated on Harry, then he wouldn't think as much about punishing others. Harry didn't think he had inflicted severe pain on Lisa or anyone else since Harry had been here. So that was one thing he could hope to do that would weigh in the scales against what he planned to take from them.

_Should I go to Malfoy now or not?_

Harry bit his lip. He wanted to now, because he wanted to advance his plan. On the other hand, going too fast would awaken Malfoy's suspicions, and Harry did not want that to happen.

Then Harry smiled grimly and stood up. He had to start planting some seeds as soon as he could, or his escape plan wouldn't be functional by the time they attacked the Ministry—which Harry badly wanted it to be. And he could take a risk as long as he displayed the appropriate reluctance. Malfoy was arrogant enough to believe that he was winning Harry over in spite of himself, that Harry was straying nearer and nearer to power and kind treatment because they worked just as Malfoy thought they should.

_Now I only need to be careful that I don't slip over the brink and fall into the trap for real._

But Harry could hardly envision that happening. Even if he wanted kind treatment, why would he take it from the hands of Malfoy, if all people?

* * *

Draco felt Potter drawing nearer, of course. He knew where most of his Marked ones were when he concentrated, and he kept his awareness of Potter more frequently in mind than he did for anyone else. Potter was the strongest of them, the most dangerous, the one that Draco would do anything to own.

But he saw no reason to show Potter that he had any power, unless that power came directly from Draco's hands. So he kept walking back and forth across his office, dictating his orders to Lisa, who asked the occasional question but mostly scribbled. It was his latest plan to attract customers to Fox Valley, and Draco thought it would be successful. The observation lenses were there to show him his customers and act as a conduit for the draining of the magic, but what if they could do other things?

Draco knew he hadn't discovered all the possibilities and innate flexibility of mirror magic yet. That was no reason not to try.

The office door opened. Lisa turned her head and stared. Draco had his back turned at the moment, luckily, and said only, "Why did you stop writing?"

Lisa returned to her task without being told. Draco _did _approve of that. She had learned the lessons most quickly of anyone, except Oliver, who had been grateful for the Mark that offered him a permanent home. He could wish for a bit more of her intelligence in Potter's head.

But then, he thought with a sigh, part of the challenge of conquering Potter was breaking that stubborn will. Without it, he would not be half as frustrating—or half as attractive.

From the sound of his boots and the position of the invisible Mark in Draco's mind, Potter had leaned against the wall next to the door. He could do that. Draco didn't mind. He kept dictating with a faint smile that he doubted anyone but Lisa would notice, and she would not understand. She thought that he wanted to destroy Potter, drive him mad with pain, break him. That was in her eyes when she glanced back and forth between him and Potter, in the tightness of her mouth and the way she breathed around them.

With Potter's eyes on his back, Draco's words grew crisper and clearer. He laid out the rest of the plan, and Lisa nodded, her hand flying across the parchment as she created the words that would anchor his ideas. Draco experienced a rush of glory that left him breathless. Having someone hang on his every word, for any reason, would do that to him.

It would do that to anyone, Draco thought, as he picked up the cup of cold water waiting for him on the edge of his desk and turned around. So it was only fair that power fell most often into the hands of people fit to hold it, like him.

Potter was leaning forwards, staring at him. He had his arms loosely held as if they had been folded and only now dropped to his sides. His lips were parted slightly. His eyes had widened and darkened. It needed only more moisture and more heat in the cheeks to complete a picture of lust-stricken Potter that Draco had wanked to many times in the dark since he came to possess him.

Draco shut his eyes slowly, so as to savor the sweetness more, and tilted his head back. Potter didn't need to comprehend that Draco was flaunting the lines of his chin and shoulders, or showing off the way his throat worked when he swallowed, the same way that he didn't need to comprehend the gentle touches of pleasure Draco gave him in the mornings. He would be affected by it anyway, and pulled into the net.

Potter stared for another few heartbeats before he jerked his eyes away. A dark flush covered his cheeks, and Draco could have purred. _You are climbing in. It won't be long before you lay yourself down in my bed and demand that I do whatever I want to you._

"Are you busy?" Potter asked harshly.

"Not where you are concerned," Draco said, and let a dollop of warmth into his voice, where he knew it would flavor his words like sugar in tea. "You haven't had enough people who treated you with kindness and who had time for you in your life, Harry. I am trying to remedy that, though I admit it is hard when you resist me for no reason."

Potter only blinked, looked for a moment as if he would run a hand through his hair, and then didn't. Draco approved. Perhaps he had finally learned how unbecoming the gesture looked on him. "I wanted to talk about our attack." A flicker of a glance at Lisa said that Potter didn't know whether she was included in the plans for Robards.

Draco tilted his head at Lisa, and she left immediately, well-trained and highly attuned to his body language. Draco sighed as he turned to face Potter again. Yes, he appreciated such service, but it had not made him ready to encounter the stubbornness of someone like Potter, who would rather kill him than serve him. Perhaps he should have encouraged his Marked ones to be insolent to him at times.

_Perhaps I would have, if any of them looked as good as Potter when they did it._

"Understandable," Draco murmured. "Have you thought in more detail about how he treated you? Sending you here as an expendable means of gaining revenge on me? Expecting you to die, or not caring if you did?" It would be easier to conquer Potter if Draco could make him lose his loyalty to the Ministry, and at the moment the easiest target in the Ministry was Robards. That would change when he was dealt with, of course, but by then, Draco would have another plan in mind.

Potter's flush returned, but this time it had changed. "I don't see how thinking about him would make me hate him more," he said shortly.

Draco clucked his tongue. "I'm only concerned that you don't realize the full magnitude of his crimes against you," he said, and sent a thought to Victor, asking him to come with another cup of water. "He owed you more than that, when you had spent so much time serving the Ministry and protecting the wizarding world."

"Why?"

Faced with that simple question, and Potter's suddenly interested eyes, Draco could only shake his head. It was the way he had reacted when he realized that Potter would accept no luxuries from him, not even the ones that his other Marked ones had. Potter spoke from assumptions that Draco didn't share, never would share, and would have loathed himself for sharing.

"Because," Draco said, "you had sacrificed yourself for the world, for him, for the people who saw you as a hero or a disposable tool or never thought of you at all. Wouldn't you honor someone who had done that? Wouldn't you give them more than Robards gave you?" He leaned forwards, because Potter was looking thoughtful and Draco wanted to drive the point home while he could. "Wouldn't you want better for them?"

"It depends on their motivation," Potter said. "Did they do it because they _wanted _honor? Did they do it because they wanted to walk among the cheering crowds and have people nod and smile and defer to them? Were they acting on survival instinct? Or did they honestly mean to be heroes and unselfishly save others? That would make a difference in what I thought they deserved."

Draco frowned and turned to the door. He could feel Victor approaching, and he was glad for the distraction. He had the feeling that he was losing this argument. "You could never know that about them," he murmured, opening the door and nodding to Victor as he took the cup of water away. "They could lie to you, and because you can't use Legilimency, you would have to accept what they said as the truth, if the lie was good enough."

"And that's why I don't mind that they don't honor me," Potter said calmly. "Because they have to trust the same thing about me, that I really _am _as modest as I claim to be. Robards may be a bastard, but I'm sure there are other people out there who listen to my words and snort and roll their eyes. Of _course _the fame had nothing to do with his actions, they say to themselves. Of course." He gave Draco a faint smile.

Draco shook his head. He hadn't expected Potter to defend himself with words so rational, truth be told. He had thought he would get a heated stare and some Gryffindor proclamation about how Potter "knew the truth in his _heart._" He held out the cup of water to Potter.

"Here," he said quietly. "After all that speech, your throat must need some refreshment."

* * *

Harry felt as if several muscles in his body had turned to ice, including his tongue.

It had suddenly struck him that he'd been standing there and having a philosophical discussion with _Malfoy_.

It was the sort of thing he would do with some of his Auror colleagues, or people that he met in pubs when he was under a glamour, so they wouldn't realize that they'd been debating Harry Potter. But it had no place here. It would soften him up, make him more like the obedient slave Malfoy wanted, if Harry _dared _to let any unplanned words pass his lips.

He wasn't here for that.

And he wasn't here to accept favors from Malfoy, either, though he had almost reached for the glass of water before he thought better of it.

"No, thank you," he said sharply, turning his face away.

The next moment, he remembered that he had come here in the first place to try and convince Malfoy that he was slowly yielding to the bastard's persuasions. Talking to him as if he were a civilized human being and not a Dark Lord could have achieved that—if Harry hadn't ruined it immediately afterwards by refusing the water.

When he turned back, though, opening his mouth to ask for it after all, he saw Malfoy with a small, mysterious smile on his face. He set the water down next to his own cup on the desk and stepped back, as if inviting Harry to pick it up when he felt ready.

_That could be what I need, _Harry thought, and bobbed his head in a brief nod. _If I go too far too fast, he'll be suspicious. But pulling myself up short of doing something that he wants me to do, combined with _also _participating in his ownership of me up to a certain part, is the way to be most convincing._

Now the only question was whether he would go too far someday and actually act as if he were _encouraging _the bastard to own him.

There wasn't a question that could be answered right now, Harry thought, and therefore unproductive. "I'm ready to tell you about the wards on Robards's office," he said aloud. "If the most gracious Lord Malfoy has a moment."

"I'm glad that you aren't calling me by my title yet," Malfoy remarked as he moved across the room to pick up the ink and parchment that Lisa had abandoned. _Does she know that she looked like a servant, scuttling out of here the minute he nodded? _Harry thought. "I think it would sound wrong from your lips."

Harry tried not to start. Was that an indication that Malfoy might _possibly _have a grain of decency in him, and understand Harry's desire for freedom?

"It'll sound so much better," Malfoy went on, picking up the parchment, "for you to scream _Draco _when you come." He flashed a look over his shoulder that Harry was sure was meant to look seductive, but only made him look as if he were thirsty and should just walk back across the room and pick up the bloody glass of water.

Harry decided not to respond to that. "He uses layered wards," he said. "Defensive on the outside, offensive on the inside."

"I've never heard of offensive wards," Malfoy said, although he bowed his head and began to write. Harry watched the way his head bent, as if even now he was trying to show his profile off to best advantage, and wondered what had made him so vain. His parents? Getting away with crimes that he should have known would be discovered and held against him someday? Natural bad luck? "If they defend what's inside, they should be defensive by definition."

Harry sighed. It was a common failing among young Aurors to think the exact same way Malfoy did, not seeing that magic didn't always respond to human definitions and remained the same whether wizards thought they were casting a good spell or not. Harry usually countered the Auror madness by relating the tale of a wizard he had arrested who had thought she was using the Killing Curse to put people out of their misery and had thought she wouldn't get Azkaban because of that. Unfortunately, that wasn't an option here. "Defensive wards set off alarms and cast illusions that should convince people breaking in to back off. Offensive wards attack the ones who are breaking in and try to shatter bones and cut throats."

Malfoy looked up, eyes locked on Harry through a sheer curtain of silvery hair. Harry liked him better at that moment than at any moment since he had come to Fox Valley, because the git looked properly focused on what they were discussing. "He doesn't care if intruders end up dead?"

"He reckons they deserve it for breaking into the Head Auror's office," Harry said, deliberately imitating the intonation he had heard Robards use on those particular words, and then sneered. Robards had looked so much like Malfoy when he said that, too, staring loftily over Harry's head at the wall as if he were discussing matters that mere _mortals _couldn't possibly understand.

And all the time, he had been Malfoy's slave, just like Harry.

Harry paused. Shouldn't he be feeling some sympathy for Robards? Thinking that he was a fellow slave and deserved loyalty? Plotting on how to get him out from under Malfoy's thumb?

_No, _Harry decided a moment later. _He would feel no sympathy for me, and he betrayed me. Besides, his loyalty to Malfoy would remain in place if I couldn't find some way to remove the Mark, and he would hate me when he discovered I had survived, which makes him dangerous to both me and the Ministry in the future. He needs to fall, no matter what happens._

"That's useful to know," Malfoy said softly, writing several words down, and then smiled at Harry as if he was reading his mind. In practice, Harry thought, he was much less successful at that than his Legilimency would imply. "If you're thinking that I might free you if I'm dead, you're wrong."

"I know," Harry said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. It didn't matter, he told himself. Malfoy would be worried if Harry pretended to like his slavery. "You've bragged about your perfect Mark for hours. I would rather see you suffer than kill you."

_There. Now when it looks like I'm yielding, he'll feel even more smug and be even less cautious._

* * *

Draco paused. There was a spark at the back of Potter's eyes that he hadn't seen before, a snap in his voice that he hadn't heard.

Doubt stirred in him for the first time. His other Marked ones had come to accept Draco's rule after a brief period of fighting, or none at all. Draco could use pain as a bridle on them, and he had not hesitated to do so. He had no reason to fear that one of them would suddenly rise in rebellion the way he knew they sometimes dreamed of doing.

But Potter…

Had he made a mistake in holding off on pain? Perhaps that meant Potter didn't respect him as much as he should. Perhaps a small touch of the lash would be good for him.

But Draco changed his mind back a moment later. He had hurt Potter when he first put the Mark on him, and Potter had laughed at him, saying that he could resist the pain and would drive himself mad before he would surrender. Draco could still remember everything about the way he looked, from how his hands clenched to the spittle gleaming at the corners of his mouth.

Instead, Draco thought, he should try a technique that he had used with full success but without much thought a few moments before: coaxing Potter into a normal conversation where he would forget himself so far as to smile.

"Just so you know," he said, and looked back at his notes. "How many layers of defensive wards and how many of offensive?"

"Defensive on the first three layers in front of the door," Potter said, his voice brisk. For a moment, the traces of their argument lingered in the echoes of a snarl, but they vanished as he spoke on. It was happening, Draco thought, keeping his head bowed as he smiled so that Potter wouldn't notice. He was slipping into a "normal conversation" space in his mind, and that made him forget who he was talking to. "Offensive behind, for four. The ones embedded in the door itself I never had the chance to examine closely, but I think they were offensive."

"Probably to use the door as a weapon," Draco murmured as he wrote, and listened intently for changes in Potter's breathing under the scratching of the quill. "Embedding wooden splinters in someone's heart would please him."

"You must be right," Potter said, sounding startled. "There was a report of a smuggler found dead outside his office one morning, with so much wood in him that he'd died of blood loss before he could heal himself."

Draco stretched his shoulders with pleasure at the praise, but still didn't look up. "Is there any spell that will release all the wards at once, or do you have to unravel them one by one?"

Potter snorted. "Robards is much too paranoid for a single spell. Yes, a burst of power could do it, but the power would probably kill the wizard who tried it. Unless—" He broke off.

Draco had to turn and look at him now. Potter was staring at his desk with a look of ferocious concentration. Draco raised an eyebrow. "Harry?"

"I know you could do it," Potter said, as if every word was being dragged out of him on heavy chains. "With your stored magic."

Draco nearly laughed. _So that's it. He knows that I'm capable of feats he's not, and that galls him. He would never have a chance at revenge without me. Well, as long as he remembers that._

"Yes, perhaps I could," Draco said. "But causing such a cacophony in the Head Auror's office is not something I wish to try. How long would it take us to unpick the wards?"

"Hours," Potter said, turning around with a shake of his head. His fringe dangled in his eyes, making him look untamed. Draco caught his breath in greed. _Someone is coming to tame you, Potter. Be patient. _"We may have to use the blast of power simply because I doubt we'd get a whole night to ourselves."

Draco hardened at the last phrase, and bit back a moan. He _did _wish that Potter would notice his condition soon. Then at least he would flush, and Draco could recover back some of his lost ground in innuendo.

But for no reason he could explain, he didn't want to do it now, although he could have. He wanted Potter to be the one to notice, the one to give him the opening.

"We'll discuss it," he said. "Come back tomorrow afternoon."

Potter's whole body stiffened, and he spun away from the order as if physical resistance would make it cease to exist. Then he stalked out the door.

Draco adjusted himself, checked the time on the clock that hung over the glass cabinet containing the wooden fox, and then smiled and brought up the strongest wards over his door. He had time for a five-minute wank.

This time, he came to images of Potter thrashing on the bed, crying out while his eyes were wide with surprise, as if he were amazed that he was doing such a thing.

* * *

_I think it worked. He's on the right track, at least, thinking I envy his power and want it for myself._

Harry headed down the stairs, consumed with visions of Malfoy staring at him, wide-eyed, when Harry broke free of his "rule" and showed his Mark to be nothing more than what it was: a paltry imitation of Voldemort's, and no more enduring.


	3. Beautiful

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Three—Beautiful_

"You're making stupid decisions, you know."

Harry didn't look up from the letter he was writing. Yes, he knew he would never be allowed to owl it, but when he wrote to Ron and Hermione, describing his situation and how much he hated Malfoy, he didn't feel as helpless. "I'm glad that you said that," he murmured. "Because I value your opinion _so _much."

Thalia sighed and leaned against the wall of his room, watching him write. Harry watched her back out of the corner of one eye. He didn't think she would attack him except on Malfoy's orders, but in her Animagus form, she had jaws that could crack his skull. That made her always worth keeping an eye on.

"Lisa told me that you were still moping around," Thalia said, scratching her left arm above the Mark. She did that all the time. Harry didn't know if it was a nervous gesture, a habit, or a signal to him that he should think more about what it meant to be Marked by someone like Malfoy. "I didn't believe it. I told her that you were stronger than that, that you had to be to be an Auror, and that you'd adapt."

She dropped her hand from her arm and scowled at Harry. "I'm always annoyed when someone proves her right. She doesn't deserve to be right _all _the time."

Harry gritted his teeth. For some reason, though Lisa said many of the same things that Thalia did, he found her less irritating. "I see no reason to give in and accept my slavery like a coward, as you've done."

Thalia laughed at him. "Is that supposed to be an insult? You aren't that good at them."

Harry laid his quill down and turned around to face her. Lisa was content to gloomily urge him to accept the Mark and then drift off if she didn't get the answer she wanted. Thalia would remain here, stinging him, until Harry retorted hard enough to make her go away. "I don't care what you want. I don't care what you like. I care about remaining free, and that's not what you've done."

Thalia smiled lazily at him, lounging back against the wall. Harry wondered if all her movements were really that cat-like, or if he only noticed because she had fought him as a jaguar. "Why would you assume that being Marked is such a bad life?"

Harry glanced at her leg, which Malfoy had twisted the other day when she hadn't fulfilled one of his orders exactly on time, and didn't answer.

Thalia snorted. "I'd be suffering pain of one sort or another, no matter what my job or condition in life. Yes, Lord Malfoy does punish me too much at times, but rarely as hard as he did when I was newly Marked and stupid. Besides," she added casually, "I think that his punishments for the rest of us have increased since you joined us. He almost never takes his anger out on you, have you noticed? The rest of us bear his displaced rage."

Harry's stomach clenched. He hadn't thought about that. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Dear Merlin," Thalia told the ceiling, "he picks up guilt from the _air_." She looked back at Harry and cocked an eyebrow. "Any normal person would think about what it _means _that Lord Malfoy hasn't hurt you as badly as he could have."

"I resisted the pain the first day he Marked me," Harry said. "Of course. He saw that it would drive me mad if he tried again, and he does want to keep and corrupt me. So he decided that he would find other ways to punish me."

Thalia gave him a slow smile. "That's a good explanation," she said, "logical and wrong."

"What other reason could it be?" Harry demanded. "If he only wanted to break me and didn't care about the condition of my mind, there's no reason for him to hold off. But he wants to see me turning my back on the Ministry and the ideals that I live by of my own accord, and he can't do that if I only agree to what he wants under duress."

Thalia sighed. "Guilt from the air, but logic can't enter," she said. "He's courting you, as best he can without simply forcing you to your knees with the Mark and taking you."

Harry stared at her. He had known, of course, that Malfoy wanted to sleep with him, but he would never have thought to describe this irrational, long-drawn process of innuendo and smirks and light touches as "courting."

"But I don't want to sleep with him," was the first thing he could think of to say.

Thalia held up her arm. "And I didn't want to be Marked, and neither did Lisa, and neither did Mina. It's always hard to tell what Victor wants, and I think Oliver was fine with it, honestly. That didn't stop Lord Malfoy. Why would you assume that he would care about whether you _want _him? He wants you, and that's enough."

"So why doesn't he rape me, then?" Harry rose to his feet and paced back and forth. He had managed to ignore the seduction Malfoy was trying to pull on him so far because he considered it so patently ridiculous that he would ever give in, and he had believed Malfoy thought the same way. But if Malfoy was serious, if he thought he could conquer Harry's resistance and bring him to his bed…

"He wants you willing," said Thalia. "I don't see it, because you're so stubborn it destroys all your attractions for me, but I'll concede that Lord Malfoy might be able to look past that and enjoy your slender body and your pretty green eyes."

Harry snarled at her. Thalia wrinkled her lips and gave him a far more impressive snarl. Harry started back, and Thalia chuckled, walking around him towards the door of his room.

"Consider giving in sometime soon, will you?" she added over her shoulder. "It would make the rest of us sleep more easily, without being rousted out of our beds every five minutes to deal with our Lord's sexual frustration."

She was gone before Harry could frame a reply. He shut his eyes and sat down on his chair, putting his hands over his face.

_Well, _this _is a dilemma._

If his resistance was hurting other people, than he almost felt it was his duty to give in. The whole reason he hadn't Portkeyed away from Fox Valley the minute he realized what was happening here was that he had felt he had to stay to protect Malfoy's victims, and he didn't know when assistance from the Ministry would reach him.

But his will turned to steel the moment he considered sleeping with Malfoy purely for that reason. No. He would break free before that happened. He would die before that happened. Malfoy would think he'd won and start relaxing if Harry slept with him, yes, but it would be a crime along the lines of giving in and believing what Malfoy wanted him to believe, or willingly stealing magic from others. It would be Harry betraying what he was for the sake of a little more comfort.

On the other hand, it did give him a different idea about how he could lead Malfoy along, if Malfoy was serious and not using his "seduction" as another way to assert his superiority over Harry. Harry could not only pretend to surrender and do what he wanted, but pretend to be struggling with an imaginary attraction.

The notion made his skin crawl. Harry didn't casually sleep with people. He had his fancies like anyone, sure, but he didn't simply ditch everything important to him and pursue them mindlessly.

But needs must when he had to survive. And Malfoy was vain enough to accept Harry's "temptation" with a lesser standard of acting, so he would explain lapses in Harry's behavior once the "surrender" had begun to himself and smooth away the contradictions on his own.

Harry stood up, his mouth grim.

_Time to begin this._

* * *

Potter had been caught in the whirlpool of attractiveness that Draco knew flowed around him even without his own efforts to add to it.

He showed up at odd times in the office, and then mumbled that he didn't know why he was there and turned away in confusion to study the walls. He spent more time than necessary discussing tiny details of the plan they were putting together to attack Robards, and argued things Draco knew, from his darting eyes and grinding teeth, that he didn't believe. He watched Draco all the time, and, being Potter, wasn't good at concealing it, glancing away with a flush in his cheeks every time he was caught.

Draco was beyond pleased.

But calling attention to such behavior would only make Potter try to suppress it. And though he would fail, leading to more amusement from Draco, that meant Draco would have to wait longer before Potter crawled into his bed and made his fantasies come true.

So he said nothing, and only gave Potter heavy-lidded glances and prolonged the talks between them when Potter wanted to do so. He made sure that he leaned on the desk or the wall or his chair at the best angle for profile viewing, and drank water or ate fruit in Potter's presence more often than he needed to.

Potter licked his lips in sympathy when Draco tried to stop the juice of pears or strawberries from escaping down his cheek. He would always refuse to share, but he couldn't stop sharing the look in his eyes.

_He's almost mine, even if he doesn't realize it, _Draco thought, and decided that it was time to start the lingering touches.

His hand fell on Potter's one afternoon when Potter was leaning forwards over his desk and snarling at him about the state of Robards's defensive wards. Draco let his fingers stroke Potter's knuckles exactly once before he pulled his hand back and shook his head.

"Excuse me," he murmured. "I didn't mean to do that."

"Of course you did," Potter snapped, snatching his hand away and cradling it against his chest as if it were injured. He turned his head aside, but Draco had seen the blush beginning in his cheeks and the dilation in his pupils.

Like it or not, he was affected.

Draco brushed past him when they rowed, and ensured their shoulders touched. He leaned into Potter's face and used his breath to touch Potter's cheeks and ears and ruffle his hair. He held out his hand one day when Potter had got worked up about Draco's assertion that it would be easy to sneak into the Ministry and waited, fingers splayed, until Potter stalked past and Draco could cup a handful of his neck.

So _easy _to twist Potter's head to the side and clamp his lips down, then extend his tongue, taking what he was owed, what was his, what he wanted…

But easy, too, to ruin the light seduction he had built up so far.

Easy to drive Potter back into exaggerated startle reflexes, and hasty denials of what he was feeling, and equally hasty actions.

No, Draco would wait.

* * *

Harry lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling and regretting, for the first time, that he had refused Malfoy's offer of more and softer pillows. Lying on them might have helped to ease his headache.

He hated himself.

He hated that he could go near Malfoy and train himself not to flinch away, that he could accept the slimy slide of the git's hand up and down his back, or over his shoulder, or over his arm.

He hated that he saw, but could pretend to ignore, the possessive shine in Malfoy's eyes when he stared at Harry.

He hated that he hadn't found some other way to fight Malfoy. A _real _hero would never have been Marked. A _real _hero would have forced Malfoy to his knees by now, forced him to beg forgiveness, remove the Mark, and swear never to harm someone else by draining their magic again.

But Harry wasn't like that. And he ought to remember it, given how many mistakes he had made in the last few months alone.

So maybe the way he had to handle things wasn't the way a real hero would handle them. He had to sneak about instead, and give false smiles, and act as if he were being pulled to Malfoy despite himself.

There was something he hated more than the touches, though—something that he didn't think Malfoy was doing on purpose, or at least not as much in a calculated way as the touches. Malfoy's hands and eyes followed predictable patterns. They were patterns he must have had success with in the past, and there was no reason for him to stop using them as long as they worked.

But Malfoy gave him compliments, causal and unforced and without apparent purpose, and Harry felt little thrills each time, as though they were healing the wounds in him that the casual disregard by Robards and others in the Ministry had caused.

Harry clenched his teeth.

It was a _stupid _way to feel.

And it wasn't as though the compliments were _substantial—_not the kind of thing that Ron would have said to him when he wanted to let Harry know that his Quidditch performance was impressive or Hermione would have said about his marks. Like yesterday, when Malfoy was bending over a diagram of the Ministry and tapping his fingers along the edge of the parchment, and Harry had leaned against the wall, doing his best to show an infatuated stare whenever Malfoy glanced in his direction.

But Malfoy hadn't been glancing in his direction when he murmured, "The information you gave me has added a lot more than I would have thought possible, given how well I know the building from Robards's reports. You're a very keen observer, Potter, and not all of that can be your training."

And then he'd gone on, and hadn't turned around to see the way that Harry's jaw dropped. That was a _good _thing, Harry thought fervently. He would have pressed his attentions even more closely if he had, delighted with the way he could surprise Harry.

Harry ground his teeth together now and shook his head. _It was off-hand. That should make it less valuable, not more. _

His memory, which wasn't doing what he wanted tonight, skipped to another compliment. Malfoy had asked Harry to demonstrate some of the offensive wards they would encounter. Harry had been more than willing to do so, hoping that it would show Malfoy what they were up against and so prolong the planning sessions, which would prolong the amount of time Harry had to gain his trust.

Harry had only seen those offensive wards in action once, but he knew what they were, what they must be. Auror training had increased his knowledge of both defensive and offensive magic, and he'd studied on his own since then, as well as picking up tricks from Dark wizards. It took him three seconds to create the shimmering spiral of silver fire in midair that would make the door splinter in a dozen different directions.

He turned to Malfoy, and saw his eyes wide, his face flushed, his gaze locked not on Harry but on the magic.

"Wonderful," Malfoy breathed. He looked as though someone had come down and handed him his own personal star. "I've never seen anyone do that. It's—you're magnificent." And he shut up and stared at the magic again.

He didn't sound seductive. He sounded full of wonder, the way he looked, as if his inner and outer states had aligned perfectly for a moment.

And Harry had felt a warm bolt pass through his stomach. It had been how long since someone had praised his magic, instead of worrying about his strength or scolding him for using a spell too powerful for the situation?

_Some of your spells _were _too powerful for the situation, _Harry reminded himself sharply. _Like the one that pulled down a ceiling on top of two innocent people. If you'd had less power, it might have made part of it fall in, and then you would still have had time to save them._

Guilt, reassuring and familiar, came to him in waves. Harry wrapped it around him, making it into armor to resist Malfoy's seductions, both the purposeful and the innocent.

_If you want more compliments, act more often in a way that means you deserve them._

* * *

Draco nodded wisely as he watched the way Potter stalked around his office. He knew the cause of this restlessness, though Potter would doubtless dispute the idea that Draco could read him so well. Other than casting the offensive ward the other day to show him what it looked like, Potter had simply not had enough magical exercise.

And power like that needed an outlet. Draco could see it now from the side of his eye if he squinted: a thorny aura around Potter that only flared when he grew angry or energetic or excited. Then Draco could see it like a black crown, floating most strongly behind his head and shoulders.

"Come," he said abruptly, interrupting the circle that Potter was spinning in, and strode towards the door.

Potter didn't move to follow him. Draco could have predicted that without turning around. He crooked a finger, and knew that Potter would huff at him before he heard the soft intake of breath that signaled it.

It was ridiculous to know someone so well without also knowing the taste of their skin and the motion of their tongue.

But Draco was willing to wait, because he wanted to know _more _than simply Potter's taste. He merely repeated, "Come. I think you will like this," and clattered down the steps that led up to his office, running until he reached the floor of Fox Valley.

Potter did come after him, turning around and stretching like an angry wolf. He was keeping himself between Draco and the houses that lined this part of the valley, Draco was amused to note. Those houses held his paying guests, the ones he gave a restful experience even as he drained them of their magic.

"You only remain here because you think I'll harm them, don't you?" Draco asked softly, tilting his head towards the houses. He walked in the opposite direction, and Potter hesitated for a moment only before hurrying at his heels.

"You already have," Potter said grimly. "I'm trying to make sure that you don't hurt them _worse_. I wouldn't put it past you to torture them for your amusement, and then hit me with crippling pain when I tried to rescue them."

Draco shook his head. At least that confirmed Potter wasn't stupid enough to think that his presence meant Draco had stopped draining magic, but his last words proved he understood almost nothing else. "Would you rescue them?"

"Of course."

No pause, no hesitation. And Potter hadn't broken his stride when he spoke of crippling pain to stand with his arms folded, either. He honestly believed Draco would hurt him, but that didn't make him back down.

"Admirable in some ways," Draco murmured. "But suicidal in others."

"What are you talking about?" Potter jogged faster to catch up with him. Draco sneaked a look at him and saw his jaw clenched, his head lifted as if he were staring up at someone who stood over him with a whip and chains.

"Never mind," Draco said shortly, and continued walking. He was in the sort of mood where he would snap at Potter if he continued to think about the way in which the bastard wasted all his talents and potential, and that would set his seduction back considerably.

They halted near the far edge of the Valley, the place where visitors usually entered and Potter had run when trying to escape, in a secluded hollow. Draco had ordered his Marked ones to build several places like this when he first began the resort. Stone walls, which looked natural from a distance, surrounded a shallow bowl of grass and dirt. The bowl filled with water when it rained, but when dry, it afforded Draco several practice grounds that his guests wouldn't simply stumble into. And the stone walls ensured that the flying magic had at least one cage.

Potter stopped at the break in the walls and looked around with pure appreciation. Draco smiled, watching him. He would see the advantages of a place like this as well as Draco did.

Potter straightened a minute later and too-obviously tried to pretend that he hadn't admired anything Draco owned. "What did you want me to do?" he asked, shifting from foot to foot and reaching up to scratch the back of his neck.

Draco drew his wand. "Duel me."

"What?" Potter dropped his hand from the back of his neck, and dropped his "innocent, ordinary wizard" act at the same time. He was staring at Draco with eyes that couldn't help but take in his muscles, his balance, his battle-ready stance.

Draco smiled. He enjoyed Potter in the moments like this, when he forgot about pretense and his apparent need to subdue everything that made him unique and showed that he was _dangerous. _"Duel me," he repeated. "I saw you use powerful magic when you were fleeing from my Marked ones, and you managed to defeat them without killing them. I'm sure that you can do the same thing to me. My only restriction is that the spell can't be of the kind to cause permanent damage. By the same token, I won't use the Mark against you."

Potter drew his wand slowly, but not with reluctance. His eyes locked with Draco's, and he said softly, "You're on."

Then he threw a wheel of green fire at Draco's feet—non-verbally, no less.

Draco jumped into the air and avoided it, but barely. He heard the _crack _as the wheel opened a gaping pit in the earth beneath him. He landed lightly and whirled around, throwing out one foot as a distraction while he cast a high, Iron-Pounding Hex that ought to catch Potter in the chest and press him to the earth.

Potter had already leaped and bounced off the stone wall nearest him. Now he was coming in at an angle, chanting spells, each of which sent a new lightning bolt whizzing at Draco.

Draco couldn't avoid them all. One hit his chest with a stench of singed cloth, one his arm, which made him wince, and one his leg. But he wasn't as hurt as Potter's victorious shout indicated he thought Draco was; he sprawled on the ground and waited until Potter landed beside him, less than an arm's length away.

Then Draco cast a Blasting Curse directly at Potter. Yes, it wasn't imaginative, but that wasn't the point. He had had years to become acquainted with his own imagination and skills. Now he wanted to see what Potter could do.

Potter raised a Shield Charm so fast that Draco barely saw it before it blocked the Blasting Curse and sent it ricocheting at him. Draco flew several feet and slammed into one of the walls. He had just raised his head when he saw Potter swirl his wand sideways and rise into the air on what looked like a waterspout made of stones and earth.

Safely perched above his head, Potter hurled more spells down at Draco: a purple hook that aimed for his guts, a dark cloud of smoke that tried to stretch like a mask across his nose and mouth, a pair of iron pincers that gripped his skull before Draco could cast a spell that fended him off. All the while, he danced in place on the narrow tip of the spout. His hair flew around him. His eyes blazed.

He was distractingly beautiful.

Strong, smooth, poised, confident…it was hard to believe that this was the same man who allowed his guilt to hobble him in ordinary conversation.

_That's the problem, though, _Draco thought, as he sent a rain of tiny frogs dripping poison bouncing away from him with a few flicks of his wrist. _He can only be like this in battle, when he's forced to stop concentrating on his faults and just survive. And I think kind treatment over a long period of time will be necessary to change that. He has to see that someone else values him at his true price before he'll believe he's worth that price._

That meant it would take even longer for Draco to bed him, but at the moment, Draco thought he could have all the patience he needed.

The spout finally retreated into the ground. Potter threw his head back, stretched in a more luxurious manner than he did after his morning exercises, and laughed aloud.

Draco froze with the richness of the sound. He didn't breathe or blink, not wanting to disturb the moment, and held more still when Potter strode over to him and thrust out a hand to help him back to his feet.

He accepted it before Potter could change his mind, and then stood in front of him, making no effort to hide his hungry stare, while Potter turned his head away, flushing. His eyelashes fluttered in apparent confusion.

"Thanks, Malfoy," Potter muttered.

Draco smiled. Potter had fought beside him and enjoyed several minutes in his company where he wasn't thinking about killing Draco or getting free, and he didn't know how to deal with it.

"You're welcome," he said simply.


	4. The View Through a Window

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_Chapter Four—The View Through a Window_

Harry paced around his room, his hands folded behind his back. He knew there was a frown on his face and that anyone who came into the room would probably think he was too serious, which meant he should stop pacing and act normal. Or act like someone Malfoy's peacock act would seduce, anyway.

But he was too worried, and he doubted that Malfoy was watching him through the observation lens right now.

There were the compliments. He thought he could get used to them, especially because Malfoy didn't give them often and he was probably going to leave before they, or rather his reaction to them, could reach a critical point.

But he had _dueled _with Malfoy this afternoon, and then willingly touched him to help him up. And worse, he had been so relaxed by the adrenaline and the release of tension that he hadn't felt guilty until several hours later.

Harry clenched his fists. _You're on your own, _he reminded himself harshly. _No one from the Ministry will know where you are, thanks to Robards. No one is going to come and help you. Your best friends are half the world away. If you don't keep yourself on track, if you don't obey your own conscience, then how in the world are you going to resist and escape?_

He didn't know. That was the terrifying thing—far more terrifying than any pain Malfoy could have inflicted on him. He might be weak enough to yield. He hadn't thought he was, but he might be.

He forced himself to stop pacing and sit down on the bed, though. He really would look suspicious if someone came to visit him, and Thalia, at least, would walk in without knocking.

Or, worse, what if Malfoy observed him through the lens in a way that Harry couldn't detect?

It occurred to Harry that there was another mystery connected with the lens, a more minor one. Why hadn't Malfoy drained Harry after he'd Marked him? Harry would have known what was going on, of course, and probably fought the lassitude that the magic-drained people in Fox Valley tended to sink into, but he didn't know a way of _stopping _it. Then Malfoy would have had his power without the trouble of tricking and corralling and handling Harry.

_He probably wouldn't have got his vengeance on Robards as easily, though, _Harry told himself, and then dismissed the notion, because every other answer was subtly frightening.

He didn't know yet how he was going to fight the pull if Malfoy invited him to duel again, or otherwise watched him show off his magic and then watched him with honest admiration and no horror, or questions about where some of his spells had come from. But one thing was certain: he would need rest, no matter what course of action he decided on.

Harry shut his eyes and began counting backwards from ninety-nine, a technique that often made him fall asleep. He would have to sleep as best he could, and deal with the problem in the morning.

* * *

Draco opened his eyes and turned in a slow circle. He was in his office, but it looked different, thanks to the moonlight gliding through the open windows. How had that happened? He never enchanted his windows to give him such light from the full moon alone, and the way the valley walls stood, it couldn't reach his office with such clarity naturally.

Draco strode across the office to shut the windows, but paused when his hands touched the glass. It felt different than usual, softly warm against his palms, lulling. Draco blinked rapidly so he wouldn't close his eyes and stand there, hands resting on the panes, like a drooling idiot. This was a trap, it had to be, and he would show his enemies that he was capable of escaping.

Then he looked through the windows and saw what was actually outside them.

A dark, twisting corridor, coexisting in the same moment and space as the brilliant moonlight, stretched across the sky into the distance. It faded at either end, making Draco sure it was a complicated illusion rather than a vision, but the two figures in it occupied most of his attention. One was a witch with a long black cloak and desperate eyes, who crouched against the wall and aimed her wand at the man who stalked her.

That man was Potter.

But Potter as Draco had never seen him, not even when he was battling Draco's Marked ones for his precious freedom. His eyes were wide, so dark they looked insane, and his fingers clamped around his wand like the legs of a spider. He moved after the witch in a low crouch, and his gaze never wavered from her—although there was a subtle tension around his mouth that made Draco sure he could whip around in any direction if anyone tried to ambush him. He radiated commanding power in a way Draco had thought impossible, given the size of the aura around him when he was angry.

That was, Draco had thought it couldn't get any bigger. But it did, and long, spiky tendrils of magic brushed almost tenderly against the walls of the corridor. Potter was the center of them all, and the determined expression on his face made him look like a lion walking proud in the center of its mane.

Draco half-closed his eyes. He knew what this was without asking: the way Potter looked when he was an Auror hunting criminals.

But he didn't _look_ like an Auror. He looked like a Dark wizard who fit into this world himself, willing to kill or torture a rival who had stolen his secrets. He looked the way Draco had imagined himself to be from the time he was very young and lay awake in his bed at night, making up his dreams.

It was no wonder Potter missed his freedom, Draco thought hazily as his erection strained against the buttons of his trousers. He could hardly do this kind of thing while he was under the Mark.

And did Draco want him enslaved that way, when he wouldn't look this way? Did he want to destroy this dark, feral-eyed wizard for the sake of someone who glared at him constantly and rode his Gryffindor conscience like an old, tired horse?

_I don't, _Draco answered himself honestly as he reached down and worked the button free. His erection pushed into his palm at once, and Draco arched his back and hissed. _I want him to look at me with those eyes and then slink to my side and serve my pleasure willingly. No one could stop us if we fought together, that version of Potter and me as I am at my best._

But how could that happen? If he freed Potter, Potter would only leave. And then he would report Draco's existence to the Ministry, and Draco would have to fight for his _own _freedom in a way he had never counted on doing. Of course he would defend his power and his lands, but his strength lay in striking from the shadows and keeping the Ministry and the wizarding world ignorant of what he could do.

_I have to have Potter here, _Draco thought as he wanked, watching while the scene beyond the windows exploded into a silent battle. The witch hurled curses made of snakes and spirals that Draco had to respect her for, and Potter countered with knives and shields and fires that made Draco's mouth water and told him the inevitable outcome of the battle. _If he walks away from me…_

The thought was intolerable. Draco bit his wrist as his hand moved faster.

Potter struck at the witch so hard that she flew backwards, limbs flailing, and struck the wooden wall. In moments she was still, and Potter slipped closer to her, his lips skinned back to show all his teeth. Draco wondered if he was sane in that moment. He looked nothing like an ordinary wizard, the calm, celebrated Auror who would wave to the cameras when the Ministry needed a publicity piece.

Potter's spell had obviously snapped something in the witch's spine. Potter stood over her with hard eyes and a small smile, watching as she writhed. Draco became aware of his own noisy pants, and would have been embarrassed, except he was too thrilled by the discovery that Potter was capable of hurting someone like this.

Then Potter struck savagely downwards with his wand. The witch's mouth opened, and green goo dribbled out as her head sagged to the side, her neck broken. Potter had killed her.

Draco cried out and came.

In the moment after his orgasm, as he stood there, trying to breathe, his voice escaping in soft, incredulous whimpers, Potter bent down and whispered something to the corpse. Draco was good enough at lip-reading to catch most of it, if not all.

"That is for your crimes. You don't deserve a trial." A soft laugh. "You died resisting arrest."

The vision froze on Potter's mocking smile, his lips parted and his teeth gleaming like a vampire's, and then exploded in silent shards of light. Draco was left standing in front of the windows, his limp, spunk-covered cock in his hand, disbelief dancing behind his eyes in stars of light.

And then he opened his eyes and awoke from his dream.

His crotch was soaked, and on his left arm, the place where he would have carried his Mark if he had one, there was a gentle, tingling burn.

* * *

Harry looked around, frowning. He had escaped Malfoy somehow; he had to have, because this place wasn't in Fox Valley. It was his office, more crowded with case files and cabinets than he remembered it, but familiar.

Harry half-relaxed. He didn't understand—this could be a complicated illusion Malfoy was spinning for him—but that didn't matter. It was still better than his room for right now, and maybe he could exploit the illusion somehow.

He walked over to the large, enchanted window. He would shift it to one of his favorite scenes, either Hogwarts or a soft, moonlit lake at night.

Instead, he found himself looking into Fox Valley.

Harry drew his wand at once and flattened himself against the wall. His first thought was that Malfoy had given up on taming him and had simply put him into the middle of an illusion so he could provide a bit of amusement before he was killed. Perhaps Thalia would be hunting him, and with his senses covered by such a convincing glamour, Harry would be easy prey for a jaguar.

But nothing happened for endless moments. Harry tried to remain on-guard anyway, but he knew he was relaxing. It was inevitable, as they had taught him in Auror training, to do that when there was no immediate threat.

That didn't keep him from hating it.

Then someone moved on the floor of the valley, on the street that ran between the luxurious houses where Malfoy's victims and Marked ones lived. Harry knew who it was at once, of course. Malfoy's hair shone in the light of the calm moon overhead. He had his hands in his robe pockets and though Harry couldn't see his face from this height, he was sure that it would wear an easy smirk.

_Why would he want me to see this? _Harry shuffled to the side, trying to make sure that he wasn't visible from the windows. _He must know that I can't hate him any more than I do already._

But he continued to stand there and watch Malfoy walking along, now and then lifting his head as if he wanted to sniff at the air. Then he paused in the middle of the street and turned his head. Harry held his breath, hoping against hope that he would see either a private conversation between Malfoy and a Marked one that would give him a clue to freedom, or someone able to hurt Malfoy.

Malfoy simply waited, though, and whatever had caught his attention wasn't visible to Harry, no matter how much he stared. Then a slow, sliding gleam above the hills caught Harry's attention.

The sun was rising.

Malfoy stood watching it come, reaching out with one hand as if he could capture some of the sunlight. Now and then he made a low murmuring noise in his throat, though how he could hear it from this distance, Harry didn't know. Of course, he had already figured out by now that this illusion was anything but normal, so he shouldn't worry about that; he should worry about other things instead.

The sun rose higher and higher, revealing the white forms of the houses, the gleaming pools and fountains that Malfoy liked to stud the valley with, the ladders and sandy walking paths that hardly anyone used, and the small, shady tables and groves where "guests" sat to eat. It was a pretty place, Harry reckoned, if you knew absolutely nothing about what went on there. Once you knew the truth, you could never see Fox Valley as innocent again.

But Malfoy had an innocent expression on his face as he stood there, staring up at the sunrise. He had dropped his hand now, and Harry couldn't even accuse him of the possessive gesture he had made earlier. His eyes were shut, and he inhaled slowly and gently through his nostrils, as though he sensed a palpable difference between the air after dawn and the air before.

Then he looked around with bright eyes, as though he was rejoicing in being in such a beautiful place at such a beautiful moment.

Harry's stomach tightened. He hadn't ever seen Malfoy look like that. He hadn't seen the fragile smile that made its way over his face a moment later.

He didn't _want _to see them.

He thought he was the only one watching this vision, and that meant Malfoy didn't have a reason to show off for anyone else. And Malfoy hadn't once flinched or held his head stiffly or let his eyes flick up the way he would have if he knew Harry was observing him. Harry had grown used to the signs that his prey knew about a watcher; there had been a rash of betrayals in the Department last year before they caught the Auror who had turned traitor, and Harry had escaped injury only because he was so cautious.

Malfoy looked human right now, normal, not wearing the smug smirk Harry had assumed endured even in his private hours. Why wouldn't it? Malfoy was someone who laughed when he took their freedom away from other people. He was invested in creating this picture of himself as an evil bastard, even if he wasn't, always.

Harry had no reason to feel differently about him.

And even if he did, so what? Why should this small scene affect him so powerfully? It was Malfoy behaving normally, the way he should do _anyway_.

But it was like the compliments. Small things seemed to be affecting Harry much more powerfully than he ever would have imagined.

He hated it.

He stepped back, turning his head away from the windows, squeezing his eyes shut. He would refuse the vision. He was sure, now, that this wasn't something Malfoy had created for his benefit. It was more likely a dream, and Harry had been trained to wake from dreams if he concentrated hard enough.

And then he _was _awake, and gasping as he stared at the ceiling. He rolled slowly over, exploring his bed with wide-splayed fingers. Yes, there was his single pillow, and the tatty sheets he had told Malfoy would be more than enough.

And there was a gentle hum of pleasure up and down his spine.

Harry shuddered and lay still. He recognized that feeling, but he knew he hadn't done anything to cause it himself. A quick check of his groin confirmed that he hadn't come in his sleep.

That left one possibility, although it hadn't happened before and Harry didn't know why it would have now.

He was sensing Malfoy's emotions through the Mark. He probably wanked a lot, most likely to his own image in the mirror. The remarkable thing, really, Harry thought as he tried to slow his breathing, was why he hadn't experienced this before.

Except that it would be stupid for Malfoy to let his Marked ones sense his emotions. None of the others had said it happened, either, when they were eloquently describing the punishments or luxuries Harry would earn if he fought or submitted to Malfoy. Why would it happen now?

Harry shuddered again. He didn't know. But one thing was certain, one thing that he fixed in the forefront of his mind and swore he would remember.

He hated it.

* * *

Draco tapped his fingers against his arm as he shut the book on mirror magic. No Mark burned there, of course, but the book had helped him understand why it had felt as though one might.

He had used mirror magic as part of the spell that would create the Marks. Mirror magic had been kind to him, helping him create everything from the observation lenses to the magic-draining process that kept him sleek and powerful. It was no surprise that he should have more to learn about it, though, since it was a complicated and esoteric branch of magic.

Officially, the Mark anchored a small mirror of his own emotions and will in the flesh of those he gave it to. (That was the reason for their shape, that of a fox, because it was a name Draco thought of himself by). His Marked ones reacted to his wishes, feeling pain or pleasure as he desired, hearing his thoughts, and obeying him with a little gentle "encouragement." Draco hadn't told anyone, even those who thought they understood him best, such as Lisa, about those little encouragements, the tiny suggestions that he could plant in their minds as they slept or were distracted. The faint caresses he brushed Potter with were cousins of the encouragements.

But it didn't work the other way around. His Marked ones couldn't hear his thoughts unless Draco permitted it. They couldn't feel his emotions. They couldn't sense his direction or location.

It had been sensible to do so. Draco couldn't imagine why he would want someone to have that sort of power over him. It was quite enough to know that he could touch his servants when he wished to, without giving them the power to touch him.

And so far, the Marks had worked exactly the way he had designed them for. Draco had never had any cause to wish he hadn't Marked someone or think he had designed them wrongly.

But he had never Marked someone he desired before, either. His own hand had satisfied him for most of the last few years, and when it couldn't, he knew where to Apparate and hire the best and most discreet lovers magic could buy. A patron who could pay with enchanted objects was rare enough to ensure Draco the flattering attention he craved.

Mirror magic centered, largely, on desire. Most of the time, Draco assumed that simply meant the longing for the things he wanted and the actions he wanted his Marked ones to complete.

But the book had phrasing that could be understood in other ways, now. Specifically, it had said that the mirrors were more likely to become two-way when emotions were powerful on either side and more than one kind of desire existed in the creator of the Mark.

Draco leaned against the back of his chair and meditated for a few moments on what he should do. It seemed obvious that allowing Potter a connection to his mind like this was stupid.

On the other hand, seducing Potter through conventional methods—such as open interest and the equally open offer of luxuries—hadn't worked, either. Perhaps he could try this until the time that it proved itself more dangerous than useful.

Draco stood. He wouldn't know for sure what the effect on Potter had been until he observed him, and his connection through Potter's Mark said that he was at his morning exercises. Better to do this early.

* * *

Harry leaped and spun, kicking at his shadow, killing particles of air. A steady rage had begun to burn in him that his exercises couldn't diminish, no matter how well he worked his muscles, or how steadily he hurled himself into almost impossible maneuvers.

He'd never experienced something like that intimate emotional sharing with Malfoy. Even in his encounters with lovers, he often held part of himself back, because he knew that most of the people who wanted to date him would be frightened of the Dark side of his magic, or didn't want to be reminded how dangerous he was. Heroes were supposed to be glamorous in their ability to kill, not harmful.

_Even though I would never have been a hero in the first place without the ability to defeat Voldemort, _Harry thought savagely as he flipped over four times in the air before he returned to the ground.

But the point remained, and he remembered the leftover sensation of Malfoy's wanking with unnatural clarity. Harry had hoped that focusing on his strain and his sweat would help clear away the memory.

No such luck.

He slammed his hands into the ground and knelt there, his eyes shut, listening to his own harsh breathing and feeling the grass crinkle beneath his gripping fingers. He longed at that moment for the atmosphere of his office, as he had visited it in dreams last night, with an intensity that left him almost sick.

A strange feeling slowly infused him as he knelt there. It was—it was the way he felt when he was watching a Dark wizard who might have made a good Auror, Harry thought. He frowned and turned his head.

Malfoy stood several feet away, arms folded, eyes fixed on him.

There was no doubt that the strange emotion came from him, and a moment later, Harry identified it.

Harry snarled and ran straight at him. He gave himself no time to consider it or talk himself out of it, and that meant Malfoy should have no warning, either.

Every moment, he expected pain to bring him to his knees, but instead Malfoy whirled out and met him, hand-to-hand and arm-to-arm.

Harry reeled back from the first blow, a flat hit against his chest that he hadn't expected. He had believed Malfoy wouldn't have the power to resist his charge. He sprang in again, aiming at Malfoy's solar plexus this time.

Malfoy defended himself calmly, his face slightly flushed but otherwise showing no sign of the contest. He wasn't a trained fighter like Lisa, but he must have taken lessons from her. And he was good enough at it to hold Harry in place, or at best moving in circles, exchanging punches and kicks that Harry couldn't work past.

It came to Harry in a sudden hot epiphany that they were fighting as they had when they dueled with magic. He halted at once and stood there, watching as Malfoy's arm traveled in at the level of his throat.

Malfoy stopped the strike before it could connect, but that meant the side of his hand still rested against Harry's neck. Harry stared back at him and tried to show his contempt so openly that even Malfoy couldn't mistake it for lust.

"It's no fun when you don't fight back," Malfoy said softly, his breath barely stirring Harry's hair.

"I know," Harry said, and sneered at him.

"Why did you stop?" Malfoy asked, in the same tone. "I know that you need the exercise as well as I do."

Harry's skin crawled. He had known Malfoy could sense things like that about him, of course, but it was newly infuriating in the wake of the revelation that he could sense things about Malfoy, too.

He moved an abrupt step backwards. Malfoy dropped his hand and stood watching him. Harry hated that, too. Malfoy was studying Harry as if he really _did _want to understand him, not use him.

"I'm your slave," Harry told him. "Remember? You don't have to care about what I think or feel."

Malfoy sighed gently. "You're mine. That means your welfare is mine to care for. And you have more problems than any other Marked one I've taken, Harry. I want to help you. I want you to stop feeling ridiculous guilt."

Harry laughed. He was shaking, and the laughter didn't sound sane, but that hadn't troubled him when he hunted the Darkest wizards, and he refused to let it trouble him now. "What, so I can give in and follow you without a conscience? I don't think so. Fuck off." He turned to his shirt, which he had taken off when he began exercising.

"There's a large difference between a conscience and guilt that prevents you from acting at some times," Malfoy said. He paused, and then added, "And not at others."

Harry whirled around. Malfoy watched him for a moment, gaze heavy with meaning Harry didn't understand.

Then he turned and walked away.

Harry yanked his shirt over his head and decided that he would have to make his move soon. He needed Malfoy's stored magic, and that meant stealing some of it if couldn't convince Malfoy to give it to him.

_And I will do whatever I need to achieve my freedom. Even something I find disgusting. _

_If I must._

* * *

Draco strolled slowly back to his office, clucking his tongue against his teeth. He had tried several different emotions before Potter, caught up in a frankly magnificent display of physical prowess, had sensed and reacted to him. Lust and anger hadn't been the key; nor had fear or anxiety.

It was _admiration, _of all emotions, that disturbed Potter enough to make him storm over and confront Draco.

Draco bared his teeth in what someone was welcome to take as a smile if they wished. _I will do whatever I must to have Potter freely on my side. _

_Even something…soft._

_If I must._


	5. Dancing on the Brink

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Five—Dancing on the Brink_

This time, when he opened his eyes in his office and saw the window before him, Harry knew he was in the midst of a dream. And he decided to ignore the images that formed outside the window, because he knew what they would be, and they had nothing to offer him in the way of escape.

He turned his back to the window and searched through his office instead. The names on the top files were unfamiliar. Harry tensed. Had Robards replaced him with someone else already? More to the point, could he trust this room to be a faithful reflection of the reality?

He reached out to grasp the nearest file, hoping it would be able to tell him what was going on if he read through it—

The air shimmered and blazed in front of him, and the window manifested.

Harry reached for his wand, and then remembered he was dreaming and stopped. What enemy, exactly, would he launch a curse at? He could _try _one, he reckoned, but there was no guarantee that it would touch Malfoy, and there was no one else he was interested in cursing at the moment.

He turned his back again, and again the window appeared in front of him. Harry turned to face each point of the compass, and it happened each time.

Harry sighed in disgust and folded his arms, considering. If there _was _a chance that he could learn more by examining the files in this office, he reckoned he wouldn't be able to until he had looked out the window.

So that was what he did. He braced himself for another sight of Fox Valley and Malfoy strolling along the street, though why Malfoy thought he would be converted by seeing that, Harry had no idea.

But this time the window showed him a sunlit scene. Malfoy knelt beside a small hill, his head bowed. Harry raised his eyebrows. He wouldn't have taken Malfoy for the prayerful type.

The scene shifted as if in answer, so that Harry was looking at it from an angle and could see what Malfoy's body had obscured before: a single white stone with an inscription on it, a name—_Eliza Travit—_and the line, _She died defending her chosen lord._

Malfoy murmured something Harry couldn't hear and held up a pouch. From the way it swayed and clinked, Harry was sure it was full of Galleons. Malfoy cast a spell that lifted a chunk of the grass and earth from the grave mound and placed the bag of Galleons inside it. Another spell sealed the earth over the top of it.

Malfoy rose to his feet. His face was sober. He traced one hand down the front of the grave, staring at nothing. Then he studied the inscription, and his mouth curved into a bitter, mocking smile.

"If only that was true," he whispered. "But you never chose me to be your lord, did you? I gave you the Mark, and from that point on you had no choice."

He hesitated, then shook his head and straightened up, as though he was worried about who might see him here, acting soft. "You should know that you did not die in vain," he said harshly. "I secured the valley that we were trying to create, and the man who killed you suffered before he died." He nodded to the patch of grass he had just placed back in the grave. "That pouch holds the money he was trying to cost us, as well as that which he _most _prized." A different smile flicked across his lips. "After I cut _that _off, he begged me to kill him."

He clenched his fists in front of him, still staring at the grave. Harry watched as his nostrils fluttered and breaths broke from him as if he was resisting the temptation to shout.

Then he said, "Good-bye, Eliza," turned on one heel, and Apparated. Harry was gazing at the smooth surface of a blank window once more.

And then he woke up, staring at his ceiling, although the dream blazed strongly enough in his mind that Harry suspected he wouldn't forget it.

_What was all that about? _Harry rolled over, running a hand through his hair. It dangled, shaggy, into the front of his eyes, and he wondered what Hermione would have to say about that, before remembering he hadn't seen her in two years and she had no idea what was happening with him right now. _As if I needed confirmation that Malfoy was a torturer and a slaver._

But he suspected that he knew what Malfoy had meant to show him—which didn't necessarily mean it was easy to shore up his defenses against it.

_He mourns the dead. He feels sorry for his slaves when they fall. He'll sacrifice money for them, which I thought was his main interest besides power, and he'll take revenge for them._

Harry sat upright and began going through some of his morning stretches, while he kept his head bowed and tried to pour clear water over the muddy thoughts in his mind.

_So what? Normal people will do things like that, too. Normal people care more about the people they love than about money. And Eliza wouldn't have been in this situation in the first place, she wouldn't have died, if not for Malfoy. He acknowledged his guilt himself._

That last thought only made Harry more uncomfortable, though, because he hadn't thought Malfoy _could _acknowledge guilt. He flipped himself over, linking his arms together behind his back and bringing them down towards his ankles. It was an exercise he practiced partially to keep himself limber and partially because one never knew when one might be bound in such a position.

But he knew why that particular image had disconcerted him so much, and the realization came to the surface despite all the attempts he made to keep it down.

_That's me. _

He had taken revenge for fallen Aurors, including Aurors who had been considered heroes rather than victims. He had buried bits of their killers' bodies with them, though he had cut them off only after they were dead.

But how often had he stood in front of a grave like that, mourning, contented with his vengeance, and yet knowing that nothing he did could bring anyone back, and that they might even be appalled by the means he chose to honor them? He had felt as alone as Malfoy looked.

Harry shuddered all over and sat up, combing his fingers through his hair. _Careful, Harry. That's the road to sympathizing with Malfoy and falling in lust with him the way he wants you to do. It can't end well._

But considering what he had to do today, it was nothing. Harry closed his eyes and began breathing deeply to settle his stomach. He didn't want to vomit all over Malfoy with disgust and ruin his deception.

* * *

When Draco found himself in front of the moonlit windows, he walked over to them eagerly. He didn't know if he would see another scene as erotic as last night's, but he _did _like the feeling of knowing more about Potter.

This time, the scene was also indoors, but a single room rather than a corridor. A large fireplace dominated the chamber, sprawling along the wall and shedding heat that Draco could almost feel. The flames were more than enough to permit him to see three plush chairs, a couch, and numerous small tables crowded together, although there were no other lights in the room.

Potter was bound to one of the chairs, with ropes that ran over his arms, neck, chest, and legs. He was gagged, and his eyes glittered with fury as he struggled.

That was all. There was no one standing next to him, torturing him, or laughing a maniacal laugh. The one door Draco could see was shut. The walls weren't obliging enough to offer clues in the forms of signs, nameplates, or unusual material. Nothing existed except Potter and his bonds.

In silent bafflement, and some disappointment that he wouldn't get to wank, Draco watched Potter writhe. He reckoned he could get some idea of how Potter writhed in the bedroom from this if he _really _tried, but it wouldn't be worth the imagination invested.

Then Potter closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate, and the gag burst apart in a series of popping sparks. Draco jumped. He had never seen someone use wandless magic that precise without damage.

And indeed, he saw when Potter lifted his head, there had been damage. The sparks had burned his lips and tongue. But still, Potter grinned madly and shook his head chidingly at the blacked remains of the gag on the floor.

"Lesson one," Potter whispered. "You shouldn't have tried to bind me. No one should _ever _try to bind me."

The dream ended there, which left Draco more disappointed than before, because he would have liked to see how Potter escaped. But as he slowly sat up in bed, he thought he understood the point.

Potter valued his freedom before all else. It was no wonder he hated the Mark on his arm so much, no wonder that he had seemed willing to die rather than yield when he was fighting Draco's Marked ones.

But that only led to another problem, Draco decided, lying in his warm bed and thinking how much warmer it would be with someone beside him. If he freed Potter, Potter would _immediately _turn on him. He wouldn't be grateful for his freedom. He wouldn't think it was a sign that Draco could change. He would believe he had intimidated Draco into doing it, and press the advantage as hard as he could.

So Draco needed to come up with a strategy that would offer Potter some freedom while at the same time keeping him fascinated and intrigued.

It took Draco approximately three minutes to do that once he recognized the need. He held out his arm, stroking the place where the Mark would have been if he had one, and smiled into the mirror.

_I really am _too _good._

* * *

Harry had braced himself for what he had to do, but that couldn't prevent him from gagging when he stepped into Malfoy's office and saw the git facing the mirror that hung on the wall, staring at his reflection. _He's vain all the time, isn't he? There's no break, no gap._

"Come here, Harry," Malfoy said in a neutral voice, as if this wasn't a command at all.

Which was bollocks, because they both knew that Malfoy would drag Harry by his "leash" if he didn't get the response he wanted. Harry grimaced and walked over to him, anyway. More than ever, he had to dance on the line between subtle rebellion and outright disobedience, and convince Malfoy that Malfoy was winning him over in spite of himself.

"What is it?" he asked, as he stood next to Malfoy. Malfoy turned his head and gave him a small smile. It resembled the smile Malfoy had given in his dream. Harry stiffened his muscles against acknowledging that and restricted himself to a single raised eyebrow, silently urging Malfoy to get to the point.

He had to do it, too. But as yet, he couldn't force his hand to move as it would have to.

"I'm going to teach you to draw magic out of the mirror," Malfoy said. "To collect and use the power for yourself. Of course, I'll set a few restrictions on the way that you can use it. But you should feel honored. There's no other Marked one that I've let approach this."

Harry stared at him. This fit in so perfectly with his own plan that he couldn't breathe, and he hadn't even hadto touch Malfoy or pretend that he was falling for his seduction.

What was going on?

He understood a moment later, though, when Malfoy gave him an unsubtle look from the corner of his eye, which _he _probably thought was as subtle as Dumbledore's battle-plans. This was another way to seduce Harry, to get him involved in the process of evil that Malfoy's mirrors facilitated and make him betray himself. Those words about Harry feeling honored clinched it.

And the hell of it was, Harry had no choice but to pretend he accepted that honor and go along with it. He would need the stored magic for his escape plan, and this was less risky than stealing it.

Gritting his back teeth, far enough back that he hoped Malfoy wouldn't be able to see a single sign of his reluctance, Harry lowered his eyes and murmured, "You honor me too much, don't you think?"

"No," Malfoy said, his voice warm and very close to Harry's ear. "I don't think so at all."

His hand brushed Harry's back, and he angled his arm so that it touched more of Harry—his shoulder, his neck. Harry knew his muscled body would be a few inches behind that, and Malfoy could—he wanted—

What he wanted made Harry sick to think about. But once again, he had to dance on the line and go along with it as far as he could, as long as he could keep the knowledge of what Malfoy was really up to (enslaving and using him) in mind and not start thinking about understanding or pleasure or any of the other things that Malfoy wanted him to think about.

Consciously, holding down the part of his soul that would rather have died than do this, Harry let himself lean back into Malfoy's touch. He heard Malfoy's choked, gasping breath, and he swallowed. But he continued to lean.

Malfoy's arm curved around his back. Harry bit his lip savagely, concentrating on the sting of pain so that he could resist the temptation to be sick, and then looked up through lowered lashes into Malfoy's eyes.

They _blazed._

Harry stared. He had expected to see triumph there, not desire. What Malfoy wanted was Harry's surrender before anything else. He had told Harry that. The seduction games were part of his strategy. Why was he looking as if what he wanted more than anything was to fuck Harry?

The moment stretched between them as they stood there, locked eye to eye, Malfoy's arm tightening around Harry and pulling him slowly closer and closer, Harry's body twitching with involuntary flinches while his flesh prickled with goosebumps.

Harry broke first. He twisted back, his hands clenched at his sides, and stood free of Malfoy, though less than a foot away, shivering. He tried to tell himself that he had made the decision for a good reason. Malfoy _would _be suspicious if Harry yielded too fast. That was what Harry had told himself all along, as he tried to make Malfoy trust him while not losing his conscience to the git's ploys.

_It could be that, _said a voice in his head that sounded like Robards's. _Or it could be that your nerve failed._

Harry bit down on his lip again and said to Malfoy, letting his voice waver as it wanted to, "Y-your offer is generous. I'll take it."

* * *

Draco's body was on fire.

He had heard people say that before, and he had always laughed them off as hopeless exaggerators. He'd felt the bite of fire several times, mostly from defensive wards around books and homes, when he was hunting the secrets of mirror magic, and no merely sexual sensation could compare to it. The people who made the most ardent claims for their lovers would still run away from flames faster than they would leap into bed.

But now, he knew what they meant.

His throat ached as though he'd been breathing in smoke. His knees vibrated. His eyes might have gone without tears for a month. His hands, the bones in his hands, were made of fire below the skin. The fire could be quenched, but only if he could act, touch, taste, hold, fuck.

He saw the same signs in Potter's eyes, the way he subtly squirmed on his feet, the impressions his nails left in his palms, and the gentle interruption of his robes at his groin. Draco nearly whimpered. If he reached out, if he used the right mixture of force and cunning, he could have Potter, and ease the flames.

But Potter was the one who had pulled free, and he had spoken about Draco's offer rather than Draco's bed. Draco had to remember that. Potter would still hesitate, still jump backwards if he pushed too fast. So he reined in his lust and spoke with the same neutral voice he'd used to give his command.

"Very well," he said, and couldn't resist a slight tease as he stepped back up to the mirrors. "No qualms about the magic being drained from people who didn't consent to it?"

He had reason to be glad that he was looking at Potter and not at the mirror. Potter blinked, once. His eyebrows twitched, once.

_He hadn't thought about that._

Draco was returned to the edge of burning, impatient flame-riding in an instant. Potter had actually forgotten about his moral objections in the pursuit of lust. Disgust, hatred, his duty as an Auror, even longing for his precious freedom, had all been consumed in his fascination with Draco's body.

God, he could take Potter right here on the _floor_.

Draco almost reached out, but Potter squinted his eyes shut, turned his head away, and said in a voice as thin as a shard of glass, "If you feel that way about it, maybe I should leave."

"I didn't give you permission," Draco snapped, and then could kick himself as Potter's eyes snapped open and he gave Draco a normal glare again. He had been trying to make Potter forget that Draco held his Mark. Now, in a single moment, half his progress was undone and Potter returned to loathing.

"May I have permission, Lord Malfoy?"

It was the first time Potter had used the title that Draco demanded from his other Marked ones, and in an instant Draco knew he never wanted to hear it from Potter's lips again. It wasn't just the mocking tone he inflected it with, either. It sounded…

It sounded _wrong._

"You can go when you call me by my name," Draco said, and realized his voice sounded hoarse, and didn't care. He was reacting on pure instinct at the moment, something he hadn't done in years. He moved a step forwards, noting the sudden stillness along the edges of Potter's face. He was readying himself to strike if he needed to.

And Draco didn't care.

"I just did," Potter said, his eyes shifting as if he didn't know whether he should look at Draco or the door behind him. "Lord Malfoy."

"Not that," Draco whispered. "Not that." He couldn't say more, but he had never thought Potter was stupid, simply refusing to exercise his intelligence. He would understand what Draco meant.

A frown pinched Potter's forehead. "Malfoy?"

Had he been less desperate, Draco would have laughed. Perhaps he would have to revise his opinion of Potter's intelligence.

"My other name," he said, and then had to shake his head when Potter continued staring at him. There was no way he could speak through the choking sensation in his throat. He reached out, his fingers splayed, having the absurd idea that he could somehow hurry out the word he needed to hear if he touched Potter.

And then Potter said it.

"Draco."

The choking sensation in Draco's throat vanished. His hand dropped as he sagged with relief, and though it meant he lost the chance to feel Potter's skin beneath his fingers again, he told himself that was a good thing. Potter would have been skittish if Draco touched him now, and Draco wanted to enjoy the same passionate trembling he had felt last time, rather than mere toleration.

_Or something even better, _he thought, eyes locked on Potter's, as the throb that had haunted his arm after the dreams, the throb where the Mark would have been if he'd borne one, started up again.

Potter's hand flew to his Mark, eyes widening. It was Draco's first solid confirmation that Potter was having the same dreams that he was. High-flying, dizzy with desire, lustful and giddy, he took a risk.

"My dreams of you are teaching me so much," he whispered. "How much you love freedom, how powerful you are, how Dark you can be. Are the images you see of me teaching you about me?"

Potter bristled all over, his eyes widening and his teeth parting in a hiss like a cat's. "You ought to know, Malfoy," he said, "since you're the one sending them to me."

Hearing his last name from Potter's lips was like a physical blow. Draco pressed nearer, lost to the sense of how foolish this was, only wanting an answer.

Well, he wanted other things, too. But out of the ones that Potter was likely to give him right now, he only wanted an answer.

"I'm not sending them," he said. "Why would I want to give you the ability to spy on me, or feel what I'm feeling? I'm more powerful if I remain enigmatic. But I'm having them, and I can see you in my dreams, and that's what I yearn for." He and Potter were as near each other as they'd been when he was holding Potter. If Draco breathed deeply, their chests would touch. "What do you see?"

Potter clenched his hands into fists. He said nothing for long moments, but Draco knew he _was _going to say something. He held his breath.

* * *

Harry was trembling.

This was the kind of opportunity he'd been waiting for. If Malfoy was ever near giving in and letting Harry take what he wanted, it was now. Harry could ask for power, and he thought it would be given.

But if he went too far, he could lose himself.

Harry didn't underestimate the thick cord of lust that thrummed between them now. It could draw them together in a way that would bind him even after he had what he wanted. Go too far, and he might not want to flee by the time that a chance came along.

But…

Rebel now, and he could remain a slave forever, Malfoy's plaything, tortured and not trusted enough for anything more.

As he had done in the past when he killed a Dark wizard outside the confines of the law, Harry took a willing step into the darkness.

He leaned in until his breath touched Malfoy's chin and whispered, "I see you looking human. Mourning the dead. Admiring your work. I didn't know you could do that."

Malfoy's breath escaped in a moan that sounded almost anguished. He cupped Harry's chin and leaned in.

Harry held his own breath throughout the kiss, which was desperate and hurtful and frenzied. When Malfoy's tongue asked for entrance to his mouth, Harry permitted it. And he concentrated on the mirror on the wall, through which Malfoy watched and drained his victims, rather than the salty, vaguely musky taste that flooded him when Malfoy's tongue touched his.

Malfoy released him and stood looking at him with bright eyes. Harry had never seduced someone exactly like this, but he knew instinctively what would be best.

He gave Malfoy a slightly mocking smile, bowed, held his breath again to conceal any outward signs of excitement, and then walked towards the door.

He could feel Malfoy staring at his back in disbelief, but he didn't look around or slow down, and Malfoy didn't call him back and demand that Harry ask for permission or call him by his given name.

_He'll want to win me more than ever. But I'm going to win._

_I have to._

* * *

Draco was on fire again, and this time his lungs burned, too, and his chest, and his motions felt thick and heavy with need, as though he were fighting through water. He locked his door and began to wank, but that barely eased the fire. Nothing would until he could fuck Potter, he thought.

As he came, his mind was not on the pleasure, but on Potter's unaffected, cool smile, and the way that he had been able to hold himself back form the kiss. Of course, Draco would end that very shortly and bring Potter to his bed.

_I have to._


	6. Night Terrors

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Six—Night Terrors_

"Wh-what are you doing to him?"

Harry rolled over with a yelp. He'd been half-asleep in his bed, drifting somewhere between dreams and plans of what he should do with Malfoy now that he had the upper hand with him—at least temporarily. He hadn't expected the interruption.

Oliver Hurston stood in the door, his eyes fixed accusingly on Harry. He was a small, wispy man, who looked as though a strong breath would cause him to collapse, but Harry remembered the way that Hurston had chased him during his flight from Malfoy, and he respected him well enough. He could summon Dementors, who he called his "darlings," and set them on anyone he liked. So far, he hadn't liked with Harry yet, probably because he knew how much Malfoy valued Harry, but that could change at any time.

"I don't know what you mean," Harry said, deciding that the best course was to play dumb. Hurston was the only one who would be this upset about someone challenging his "master," but Harry saw no reason to make it easy on him. He sat up and brushed at his hair as if he thought he could make it lie flat.

Hurston actually stamped his foot. "You kn-know," he said. "Of c-course you do. You're s-seducing him! He walks around with his eyes on the stars and his m-mouth in this wide, innocent smile. He needs to be thinking about the Valley and the m-magic that keeps us safe. You shouldn't do this to him."

His voice was edging towards hysteria, and Harry dreaded the thought that he would probably call to the Dementors. So he made his voice as soothing as he could. "I don't think I'm going to be able to seduce him for very long. After all, he wants to seduce _me_."

Hurston stopped scowling and squinted at him instead. "Explain."

"He's going to notice the game I'm playing." Harry tugged at his hair again, and hoped that made him look sufficiently distracted and tense. "And then he'll turn on me, and the game will end with me seduced instead of him. So you don't need to worry about him. I know that he's a lot more powerful than I am." _And if he's spying on me right now, that ought to reassure him that he still has control over me._

Hurston thought about it, then nodded. "I was a fool to worry," he said, as he turned away. "You're w-weak, and you need someone to shelter you the way that he shelters the rest of us."

Harry shook his head, but he waited to do it until Hurston had left the room. Out of all the Marked ones, the man who could control Dementors, probably the one who could best survive on his own, was the only one grateful for his slavery. Apparently Malfoy had offered him a home after he'd been chased from place to place because of his "gift."

The problem was, Harry was more on the side of the people who had chased him away than he was on Hurston's.

_Even given that Robards did his very best to remove you from the Ministry in the same way, and the Ministry was full of people who distrusted your talents and thought you were Dark for the spells you picked up?_

Harry stood up. _No, _he answered himself. _Malfoy took me against my will, and Hurston wanted to come here as a refuge. Our situations aren't comparable._

He did take a quick glance at the observation lens, but saw none of the glassy flicker that would suggest Malfoy was watching him at the moment.

Hurston had woken him up effectively, and he wasn't getting anywhere lying in the bed anyway, and he had limited things to do in his room. He should decide, once and for all, what he was going to do as he worked to seduce Malfoy and put him under Harry's control.

The problem was, he knew pretty much what he should do, based on the cool persona he had adopted at the end of their last conversation, someone unaffected by the kiss. He should wait for Malfoy to come to him. Malfoy, consumed by unchecked desire, would be thinking with his cock rather than his brain. And then Harry could—

He paused, choked by disgust. It felt as if he had a throat full of clay. He made his way to the sink and spat several times. That felt a bit better.

Then Harry could pretend to as much reluctance as Malfoy needed to believe that Harry hadn't done this deliberately. It was absolutely essential that he prevent Malfoy from suspecting anything, because a Malfoy a bit on his guard could use the Mark against Harry in all kinds of debilitating ways.

And then he could yield.

* * *

Draco woke with a start, and touched the sweat forming on his forehead. He rolled over and stared at the far wall of his room, almost expecting to see windows there, but nothing appeared. In fact, he thought as his mind slowly worked through the last impressions lodged in his head from his sleep, he hadn't had a dream about Potter at all.

Or at least, not the kind of surreal, strong dreams that the Mark-bond between them inspired. He'd had a dream of another kind, as the aching, unsatisfied erection between his legs showed very well.

Draco knew what the sensible thing to do was. He should lie back, close his eyes, and go to sleep. Or he could take a Dreamless Sleep Potion, although he hadn't dared do such a thing since he had Marked Potter. He wanted to be able to wake in case of an emergency. But it was unlikely that Potter would make a move right now, after a day when he had just found out about the dreams and had that kiss from Draco.

_If the kiss affected him at all._

Draco growled and punched his pillow. Of _course _the kiss had affected Potter. He had only pretended that it didn't so he could have a speck of power in the situation. Otherwise, he had none at all. Draco knew that.

But he could see the mocking smile Potter had given him before he left every time he closed his eyes. No, every time he blinked. It had scratched a wound in Draco's pride that was still bleeding.

He wasn't going to be able to sleep. He could get up, go to the office, and work on his reports and the economics of the Valley. He could call Lisa or Thalia to help him, which was something he had done before he had started having the dreams and had roused in the middle of the night because of Potter. Asserting his power over _someone _might quell his unease at having failed to conquer Potter.

But things were different this time. He wasn't calming at the thought of exerting his mastery. His erection wasn't subsiding. He needed to either wank or—

Draco sat up suddenly, fingers curling into the sheets. There was no one there to see him, which made his growl less impressive, but no less necessary.

Why in the _world _was he acting as though Potter was the victor in this situation? As if Potter had any power but that which Draco gave him! Potter couldn't have disconcerted him or won anything this afternoon if Draco had simply snatched his shoulder and spun him into another kiss instead of letting him walk away.

Potter had no ability to keep Draco out of his room or keep him away except on Draco's sufferance. Draco was the one hesitating like a schoolgirl abashed that her crush might already have asked someone else to the dance. Sweet Merlin, he'd been bolder about asking Pansy to the Yule Ball when he was a fourth-year!

He shouldn't blush and doubt and stand on the threshold as if he were a child. He should—

Draco rose from his bed. He knew that the smile curving his lips was vicious, and he didn't care. Potter was free to think whatever he liked when Draco stepped through his bedroom door and confronted him, but not free to do anything else.

He would _take_.

* * *

Harry woke suddenly in the darkness to the grip of cool fingers on his neck. He thrashed and reached for his wand. The Aurors had taught him how to deal with people trying to strangle him. First you—

"Hush," said the voice above him, weirdly deep, causing Harry to wonder for a minute how a centaur had sneaked in here.

And then he was being kissed.

He gasped, but that only allowed more room for the invasion of Malfoy's tongue. And it had to be Malfoy, of course it was Malfoy, Harry thought wildly, as he lay there caught between his pounding heart and the probing tongue and wondered what he should do. None of the Marked ones liked him well enough to sneak into his room and do this.

_Malfoy doesn't _like _you._

He had only moments to decide what he should do. Except it wasn't a decision. He knew what he _had _to do.

He let his flesh crawl with revulsion and his breath catch because of fear, but those were the only outward signs before he reached up, grabbed Malfoy's neck, and dragged him closer, further into the kiss.

Malfoy moaned as their teeth clicked together and their tongues slipped against each other. Harry found the whole thing slippery and musky and salty—the tastes he had noticed in Malfoy's mouth before—and even coppery, because Malfoy had bitten him somewhere along the line. But not arousing.

_Liar, _said an impulse in the back of his head.

Harry didn't have to listen to his fear, which was all this was, he thought savagely. He rolled over so that Malfoy lay beside him on the bed and tried to break free of the kiss so that he could lift Malfoy's shirt. If he could get at bare skin and distract Malfoy sufficiently, then maybe he wouldn't insist on touching Harry in return.

But he hadn't reckoned on the git's strength. He caught Harry's wrists just as they touched the hem of the shirt and lifted them both, kicking with his legs at the same time. Harry found himself on his back with his wrists pinned to the pillow and Malfoy straddling his hips, staring into his eyes. Harry could barely see him in the dim glow of the fire. That didn't matter, though. There were a limited number of expressions Malfoy could have on his face, really.

"I," Malfoy breathed, "am going to fuck you."

Harry couldn't help it. He gave a single, terrified buck, because he wasn't _ready _for that yet, and it had never _happened _to him, and if there was ever a moment in his life when he thought he had a justification for acting like a shy virgin, it was now.

Malfoy laughed deep in his throat and draped himself across Harry's body, fingers feeling at his collarbone and neck. Harry turned his head to the side before he could stop himself, and then gritted his teeth and turned it back. He would be all right if he could just lie back and make himself accept this, but it seemed Malfoy was one of those bastards who required active participation.

"Not fucking you in the way you think," Malfoy whispered into his ear, and then bit it. Harry arched again, but it was for a different reason now, and _shit_, he was getting hard. "You're not ready for that yet. By the time you are, you'll be begging to fuck yourself on my cock, wanting it so much you're drooling in your sleep."

The words helped give Harry some needed distance. _This is a seduction, _he told himself in a cold voice that could speak in his mind, while his audible voice just made stupid hoarse gasping sounds. _That's all. He'll say what he thinks he needs to say to make you even more his slave. What you can do is say what you need to say back._

"Then what do you intend to do?" he asked, and was pleased that his voice shook only a little.

"Touch you," Malfoy said, voice so guttural it took Harry a moment to work the words out, and then he slid his hand down Harry's shirt and ripped at it.

He didn't rip it apart, of course. Harry thought it would have taken more strength than he could use from the position he was in, especially with one hand occupied holding Harry's wrists. But he managed to cause an impressive tear, and Harry hissed at him and tried to wriggle aside. "This is the only bloody shirt I have," he whispered, hoping Malfoy would get the point and roll off him.

Except that Harry wanted him to stay in the same place, really, since he was fooling Malfoy about how much he wanted him. At least, that was what he thought he was doing. His mind was roiling and bubbling with confusion and hatred.

And the fucking arousal that remained in the same place as always, his erection jabbing Malfoy in the hip.

"I'll give you all the shirts you need," Malfoy said, his voice low, and then pushed Harry's shirt up instead of trying to rip it and took Harry's nipple in his mouth.

Harry shut his eyes. The sensation pierced through him in a sharply unpleasant way, traveling straight to his groin and making him writhe despite himself. The only escape he had was not looking at Malfoy.

"No one's ever done this for you before, have they?" Malfoy asked, and the delight in his voice was obscene for more than one reason.

"My lovers so far have been women," Harry said, and began to fight his way to a position in his mind where he could handle what was happening to him, and what was going to happen. He had to be calm. He had to be as detached as he could. And at the same time, he had to convince Malfoy that he was enjoying himself, if reluctantly. That would spur Malfoy on and lull his suspicions. "There's been no reason for them to do that."

Malfoy went still above him for a moment. Harry glared up at him warily, wondering what he had said to make Malfoy stop, and if it was something he should repeat or not.

His mind wanted him to repeat it. His body didn't.

_You don't get a vote, _Harry told his body, and wished he could see Malfoy's expression better as Malfoy bent down to him again.

* * *

The depths of the innocence and ignorance revealed in Potter's statements appalled Draco on one level. What had Potter been _doing _with his life? There was no reason for him to have missed out on so much, when he was famous and fame could work just as well as any other aphrodisiac.

But on another level entirely, those words intoxicated Draco. He was going to be first in many things for Potter.

_So many, _he thought yearningly, and bit down on Potter's nipple again. Potter's little shudder and startled cry increased his intoxication.

"You have no idea," Draco whispered. "No idea how much I desire you, and how much you will come to desire me, in time." He lifted Potter's shirt up over his head this time, and bared his chest.

There were scars there, and one long stretch of twisted flesh that Draco frowned at. A burn, or something else? Not that it mattered, not when he could run his fingers over it and make Potter flinch deliciously with sensation that seemed too intense for him to handle.

"A hard life," Draco told Potter, who had his head twisted away and his teeth bared. "Not so hard now, unless you want to make a pun." He shifted his groin against Potter, and Potter lifted his hips to meet him.

Draco smiled. Potter liked to think of himself as difficult, as tough, but Draco had conquered many people who thought of themselves like that over the years—if not usually in quite this way. It was one reason he used pain and pleasure through the Mark. People could tell themselves all the lies they liked, but in the end, their bodies were made to be responsive to certain feelings, their nerves to fire when they felt them. And someone like Potter, who had a myth of himself that he cherished, the Auror who would never break or back down, was particularly vulnerable. He hadn't trained himself to resist or combat those feelings.

Draco had already changed his strategy from the moment he entered Potter's room. He had been going to fuck Potter whether Potter wanted him to or not, because he had to ease his own need. Now he was going to make sure Potter came with him, and in a different way.

He spun Potter with his arms and legs, releasing Potter's wrists so suddenly that they flailed uncertainly in the air. That was good. Draco didn't want interference.

He lay down behind Potter, erection resting in the curve of Potter's arse, and set a furious pace of frotting against him, while at the same time plunging his hand into Potter's pants and taking up his cock.

Cloth scratched at him, Potter's clothes and his own. Potter kept up a humiliating stream of tiny gasps—well, Draco would have thought they were humiliating if _he _was the one making them, but as it was, they fed his arousal. His sweat burned down his back, and Potter's bobbing head connected with his jaw once.

Faster. Faster. So hot. Draco was panting, his hair soaked, his cheeks as wet as though he'd been weeping. He bent closer in and smelled the sour scent arising from Potter's body. He didn't shower enough. The cock Draco was touching was probably crawling with dirt.

That only made Draco more excited. He wrenched at the head of Potter's cock and rocked himself, tight in the confines of Potter's buttocks, only outside for now but inside soon enough, feeling the tight clamp as Potter clenched down in fear, in anticipation—

The drag at his balls—

The boiling feeling in the center of his chest—

Draco bit Potter's shoulder, because he didn't want to speak or grunt aloud. _Potter, _though, grunted, and began to come.

Draco followed, shaking, triumphant, gripped and pulled along, flung into the air, descending with a thump and a groan into near-immobility. His hand was wet, he thought distantly. Well, that wasn't a problem. His crotch and his face were wet, too.

He withdrew his hand slowly, dragging his fingers through Potter's pubic hair as he went, dotting it with come. Then he turned Potter over and curled his fingers against Potter's cheek, decorating him with his spunk.

Potter's mouth was hanging open. He was trying to scowl—Draco could see the twitches at the edges of his face—but he couldn't. He was too spent.

Draco leaned forwards and sank his tongue into Potter's mouth again, marking his victory.

* * *

Harry was shaking, as exhausted as though he had run miles on top of a night with no sleep. Well, he _hadn't _had any sleep, except an hour or so before Malfoy had awakened him, but that wasn't—that shouldn't—

_Fuck._

He hated the overwhelming bursts of electricity that seemed to travel through him when Malfoy's hand or elbow brushed his groin. He hated the wetness that soaked him there. He hated the limpness of his muscles, the urge to roll over and nestle next to Malfoy the way he would have any ordinary lover. He hated the former stiffness of Malfoy's cock, and he hated the way it felt now, limp and soft, against his arse.

He hadn't _asked _for this—for the slavery, or for Malfoy to find him attractive, or for this wank. Any of it. He ached and he burned and he hated.

But it had happened, and he wouldn't get free of the Mark by wishing. He would have to do the best he could with the circumstances he found himself in, a useful lesson for any Auror, and one that Harry had found easier to learn than a lot of others. It was what he'd had to do when he was fighting Voldemort, after all.

So he gathered his scattered wits, and he inched his hand to the side, picking up his wand. Malfoy wasn't paying attention; he worked his way with sloppy kisses along Harry's back, now and then pausing to tongue the bite mark.

Harry hated the fact that he'd come from being bitten, too, a violent tendency he'd never known about, just like the sensitivity of his nipples. But the point, the _point_ of it, was what Malfoy was too distracted to realize what he was doing now.

Harry's wand was in his hand. He pointed it at Malfoy under the curve of his hip, where Malfoy's hand was roaming greedily, absently, and cast the Forcing Charm nonverbally.

The Forcing Charm was one of those spells he wasn't supposed to know. Close kin to the Imperius Curse, it would render someone soft-brained and agreeable and prone to babbling everything they knew in response to questions. It couldn't guarantee truth like Veritaserum; if someone had a lie at the forefront of their minds, they would speak the lie. And the things they babbled about weren't always important or useful.

Harry knew he was taking a risk, both with the spell and because Malfoy might notice that he was under a spell. But Harry was betting he couldn't, that the flood tide of hormones would confuse him enough to make the spell indistinguishable from it.

Maybe.

In any case, no choice. Harry could at least try and use this chance to make up for Malfoy's unasked-for violation of his body and take his mind off his own disturbing reaction, which was that he could have fought, could at least have taken the chance to shove Malfoy away, and didn't.

Malfoy gasped, and Harry, dropping his wand back into its former place, tensed, wondering if he had sensed the Charm. But when Harry tested him out with a glance, he saw only a confused, sleepy-looking Malfoy with a faint frown. He would have been a lot more outraged if the spell hadn't worked or if he knew what was happening.

Harry whispered, "What are your most powerful enchanted objects?"

Malfoy gave him a smile as sloppy as his kisses. "Bracelets!" he chirruped. "Jade and silver. Stored magic. In a drawer in my desk. You take 'em and you wear 'em and you get a greater boost to all your spells."

Harry swallowed, feeling the tingle of excitement begin in his wrists and his ankles. He might be able to use them. He might be able to get free. "Is there any restriction on who can use them?"

"No," Malfoy said, giving him a superior look. "Because I might want to lend magic to people. To you." He leaned in for another kiss.

Harry let him take it, hiding a grimace. "How do you open the drawer?"

"Threefold locking charms," Malfoy said, waving a hand. "No trick for you." Again a kiss, and Harry rolled his eyes but added some tongue when Malfoy whined sulkily.

"What else?" he asked.

Malfoy was happy to brag about his enchanted objects, and Harry congratulated himself for choosing the perfect time and place for his spell. Malfoy wanted to impress him, he had just come, and he was feeling the loopy kind of trust that people were prone to feel for people they slept with, however stupid the reason. He would probably remember he had spoken of this later—Harry didn't want to try a Memory Charm—but he would only assume he had been under the influence of his desire to win Harry over.

Finally, Malfoy curled up beside him and began to snore lustily. Harry lay awake, refining his plan, which wasn't particularly subtle or complex but did rely on him getting away with those bracelets unnoticed.

After they attacked Robards, of course, and made him pay.

Harry carefully avoided any thoughts that would make him uncomfortable, such as the weird strength of his desire to make Robards pay.

Or the way that he had yielded to that shattering climax, the long moments when he could have reached down and moved Malfoy's not particularly tight grip off his cock, rolled away and put distance between them, how he had even _considered _doing that—

And hadn't.


	7. Destruction

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Seven—Destruction_

Harry rose early in the morning, before Malfoy's light possessive clutch of him across the waist could become a real problem. He grimaced at his ripped shirt. It really _was _the only one he had, and all the promises in the world wouldn't be able to clothe him. He rubbed at his chest as he thought.

Then he raised his head defiantly. Why should he wonder what the other people in Fox Valley thought? The magic-drained victims were too tired to notice anything anyway. The other Marked ones would only think it meant he had finally had sex with Malfoy, and they would be too satisfied to ask questions.

He strode out of his house, shoulders bristling with tension. But the only ones abroad were a few couples who stayed in the other houses, and as he had thought, they glanced at him and then away as if he were of no account.

Harry sighed and made his way towards Malfoy's office. The sooner he got hold of those bracelets Malfoy had been kind enough to babble about, the better. He hoped it wouldn't take him long to figure out how to use them, and that Malfoy would wake with no memory of last night except the obvious ones.

The bite mark on his shoulder promptly throbbed in response to the Mark on his arm. Harry bared his teeth. He hadn't chosen either one of them, but his slavery to them wouldn't last long now.

* * *

Draco opened his eyes. He was cold, and he rolled over and snuggled against his bed partner, wondering if he had deliberately cast a Chilling Charm so that Draco would wake up and have him again.

He met only sheets, not a cold body.

Draco lay still for some time, letting his rage build. Potter had discarded common notions of decency and courtesy since he arrived in Fox Valley, so perhaps this shouldn't have been a surprise. But this was more than decency and courtesy, Draco thought. It was a deliberate attempt to _ignore _what had happened here, and that, he wouldn't let Potter do.

He took his time about sitting up and stretching. He thought he knew where Potter would be: in the field, practicing his morning Auror exercises and trying to drive the response of his body out of his mind by making himself physically exhausted.

But when Draco concentrated on the sense of Potter in his mind, it pointed towards the center of the Valley, towards his office. In fact, Potter was just then ascending the stairs and passing through the wards that Draco had tuned so that none of his Marked ones would be attacked. They were constantly in and out of his office, running errands, and he didn't have time to lift the wards each time they needed entrance.

Draco murmured, "An odd choice." He didn't care that no one was there to hear him; he felt as if Potter could sense the words anyway. "Why would you go there? Do you intend to destroy my records in thanks for my seduction of you last night?"

He allowed himself a smile then, and the memories came rushing back, dancing around his body and mind in a warm, sticky flood like semen. The way Potter's back had arched when Draco touched him. The way he'd endured it with a humiliated, horrified expression on his face, but yielded the moment Draco put a hand on his cock. His wonderful response to the bite.

Draco would pound those memories into Potter's mind by Legilimency if he had to, rather than allow him to deny what had happened between them.

He rose when he was ready and glanced around the room disdainfully. Potter had refused all the many luxuries that Draco could have offered him, but there was a difference between that and living a poor existence, and he did. Draco would order him into different rooms immediately, rooms closer to Draco's own and filled with the riches that the current lover of the Fox should enjoy.

He didn't hurry to his office. He didn't have the need. He went at a slow stroll, turning the memories over in his head and chuckling now and then, as well as nodding to his Marked ones when they met him. They all turned to stare after him in wonder, seeming to doubt he could _actually _be in such a good mood in the morning.

Let them wonder. Draco would introduce them to Potter in his new role soon enough.

* * *

Harry got inside the office easily enough, and had located the drawer with a quick whispered spell that searched for locking charms. Then he'd turned and put a locking charm of his own on the door. It looked like nothing more than a spiderweb, if a large one, but it would take enormous power to break through it. Malfoy probably had the power because of his stored magic.

On the other hand, Harry hadn't noticed him wearing any bracelets or other obvious places to store that power last night. He hoped Malfoy would have to hammer through it, and would be exhausted when he finally broke into the office.

_Now_, he thought, and began to unwind the locking charms.

It wasn't difficult to do this when one understood how the charms inevitably intertwined, but it still took time and patience. Harry focused his eyes on the places where the "hooks" of one spell ran into the "hooks" of another, and chanted softly under his breath, never letting the spells falter as he waved his wand. He couldn't be sure how much Malfoy would remember of the conversation last night.

Even if he remembered nothing, it was too much to hope that he wouldn't notice the disappearance of his two most powerful magical artifacts. Harry intended to take only one, and leave a glamour of the other in its place. That ought to pass at a quick glance, and Malfoy probably wouldn't have a reason to reach for them both any time soon.

_Until we go after Robards._

Harry shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. He would just have to figure out how to use the stored magic before then, that was all.

He had undone two of the locking charms when someone knocked on the door, and Malfoy's effortlessly polite voice said, "I do hope that you're entertaining yourself in there without destroying anything, Harry."

Harry's skin crawled, and it was difficult for him to breathe or say anything for long moments. Malfoy was such an _actor. _Everything he did was false, every word intended for a lie. Harry wondered that he didn't get tired of it.

More, he wondered how Malfoy possibly thought he could be attractive to someone like Harry, who lived by the rules of honesty.

_Easy, _Harry snapped back at himself. _He doesn't care about being attractive to me. In fact, he probably relishes the challenge of not being my first choice, because he wants to crush resistance and make me into his lover against my will. He wouldn't enjoy it as much if I came to him with open arms._

Harry wished that he was a good enough actor to pretend to like Malfoy and so put him off, but he wasn't, and Malfoy knew it. He bent down to work on the locking charm again.

* * *

Draco sighed. Potter hadn't responded to his sally, even with a grumble or a curse, and that meant he was going to be difficult. Well, Draco was armed with his memories and his new knowledge of Potter's body. He was fairly confident that he could bring the most difficult lover to his knees with a few discreet touches. The knowledge was only a garnish.

He reached out, gripped the door handle, and then found he couldn't turn it. He might as well have been touching a fake decoration of wood.

Draco paused and raised his eyebrows. So Potter thought he could use magic against Draco? He was about to find out that he couldn't, at least not without Draco's knowledge and cooperation, as he'd received during their duels.

Draco did consider for a moment before he laid his left arm against the door. He was revealing a powerful secret that, of all his Marked ones, only Lisa knew about, since he had had to work the hardest to subdue her. But he decided, in the end, that it was worth it. He had to make Potter understand that his rebellions were largely useless.

Potter's Mark was on one side of the door. Draco was on the other, and so was the patch of skin on his left arm that should have borne the Mark if he had consented to have one. It was attuned to his slaves' Marks besides. He only had to attune them more closely, think of the stylized fox and the mirror magic in the Mark, and then command the barrier between them to get out of the way.

It did, in the simplest way possible. There was a distinct spluttering noise that a locking charm made when undone, and the door swung open. Draco strolled in.

He was just in time to catch a glimpse of Potter springing back from his desk and turning to face him, while stuffing a jade-and-silver bracelet in his pocket. His eyes were wild, his mouth contorted in a snarl.

He looked, at the moment, more like the vision of himself that Draco had seen in dreams than he had ever seen him look in waking life.

"What are you doing here?" Potter said, voice low enough to vibrate in Draco's bones.

Draco did feel the urge to laugh as he shut the door behind him, though, and nearly gave in to it. He would have if he didn't want to keep the mood serious for Potter's sake.

"This is my office," he responded, walking closer. Potter's eyes went darker still. They looked like jade, Draco thought, like the jade pieces in the bracelet he had picked up. "I have every right to be here. What are _you_ doing here?"

Potter seemed to hang in the balance between lying and telling the truth, between giving in and resisting. Draco had never had a Marked one, or for that matter a visitor to the Valley, who intrigued him so much. He didn't know what was going to happen, which rendered him less in control of the situation than he liked, but also made him more interested. He waited, his arms folded and his head slightly bowed so that he wouldn't miss a single flicker of expression that might cross Potter's face.

* * *

Harry was burning with pure, uncomplicated rage. He had almost forgotten what that felt like, given the complexities of his situation since he had come to the Valley and found himself as neatly trapped by his plans as he wanted Malfoy to be.

_I am going to destroy him. I have to destroy him. But I don't know what will happen if I can't kill him immediately—and he claims that the Mark can last beyond death. I don't think he's telling the truth, but there's no way I can risk it until I know more._

But he wanted to lash out. Oh, how he wanted to do that. No desire had ever been so strong, not even the desire for his friends' company after they had moved to Australia. He had to destroy.

And he had to keep the desire in check.

Harry reached down into the depths of his soul and brought back his control, somehow. He knotted it around his rage like a net of many meshes and weighed it down to the point that he could manage a casual shrug. "I wanted to challenge you," he said, honestly, though the words didn't have the meaning that Malfoy would assign them. "I wanted to see what would happen if I broke into the office and took one of your bracelets." He touched the bracelet that still stood out of his pocket with casualness that he hoped would fool Malfoy. "Is this one that you're going to let me use? You did promise to share the stored magic with me, let me access it, if I remember your words accurately."

Malfoy crossed the room with a light leap and a bound, landing directly in front of Harry and gripping his wrists. Harry had expected the sudden movement, had even noted spells in the room that he knew were meant to let Malfoy move more quickly, but it was still a shock to see it happen right in front of him. He twitched and stiffened, and it was a greater effort not to pull back when Malfoy took his wrists than it had been to subdue his fury.

"You didn't pick that bracelet randomly," Malfoy said quietly. He smoothed his fingers up and down the skin over Harry's pulse, smiling into Harry's eyes as if he could see every change of his emotions and valued them. Harry felt the black hatred trying to eat into his soul and shivered again with holding it down. "You would have to get through threefold locking charms before you could touch it. What made you choose it?"

"I sensed the power," Harry said, with a shrug that he hoped would convince Malfoy to release him. It didn't. Harry was rapidly losing his control with Malfoy touching him like this, so he planted his feet next to the desk and shrugged more firmly.

"Did you not wonder how I came through the door, through the locking spell that you had so cleverly set up?" Malfoy breathed. He shifted his weight and leaned forwards, maintaining his hold and bending Harry down over the desk. Then he bent down on top of him, so that their faces were less than an inch apart. His breath was warm and moist on Harry's lips. The bite mark on Harry's shoulder throbbed, and Harry didn't think it was just because it was pushed against the wood of the desk. "Do you not worry about my power, start when you see it, admire it?"

"Nothing could make me admire you," Harry said. Words were the only outlet he had at the moment. Yes, he could let himself go and hit Malfoy, but he knew that if he did that right now, when his anger was boiling and churning beneath the surface, he would seriously try to kill him. The time wasn't right for that yet.

* * *

Draco knew how to read the signals of eyes and hands, faces and bodies. And everything from the flush on Potter's face to the flash in his eyes said that he was on the edge of exploding.

No hardness, though, from the push of Draco's groin against Potter's. He had hoped there would be. He let his weight drape more firmly there and smiled into Potter's eyes, wanting to goad him into leaping. Then Draco could meet him with mouth and hands and show the "punishment" he had in mind for him.

"Are you sure about that?" Draco whispered. "I know that you admire new Dark knowledge, that you fight wizards whom the Aurors assign you to hunt but that you also pick up their tricks. What if I showed you new spells? What if I let you have access to the stored magic, under my proper supervision, without your having to break in and steal it? Wouldn't that be a good basis for admiration?"

Potter laughed. The sound could have cracked glass. "You mistake practicality for admiration," he said. "Yes, of course I would take what I could from you, so that I could destroy you in the end. You have this mad idea that I'm going to fall in love with you or something. I'm never going to forget that you enslaved me, Malfoy. Never."

Draco smiled. He understood the words for what they were: a defense against Potter's own feelings, his own arousal and desire and slow longing for the way that Draco could touch and teach him. Yes, he might miss his freedom, but freedom was just an abstraction. He was hardly a slave at the moment, when Draco had never forced him to do anything after the first day when he had demonstrated the Mark's capabilities.

"Come, come," Draco said, and then chuckled at his own awful pun. He reached down and cupped Potter's groin, rubbing gently. Yes, there was a stirring under his fingers less than a second later. "You can't deny that you enjoyed what we did last night."

Potter's eyes flickered open and shut erratically. His breathing was so harsh that Draco might have been worried if he hadn't been lying right on top of him and known the cause for that harshness. Potter shifted, spreading his legs wider, and Draco settled between them more comfortably, never taking his eyes off Potter's face or his fingers off his cock.

He had never envisioned that he could have a permanent companion when he began accumulating power and wealth. Someone would always hate him because of that power and wealth. He could have slept with his Marked ones, but that wasn't much to his taste when they would only give in because of the Mark.

But here was someone who resisted and who was just as interested in the accumulation of power as Draco was, though for different reasons. With some persuasion, Draco thought he could teach him to be interested in the accumulation of wealth, too. It would have been harder to detach him from the Aurors, but Robards had handily accomplished that. The news Draco had heard from outside the Valley claimed that Potter had died in a heroic effort on a secret investigation and that the wizarding world was mourning him.

Here was someone Draco wanted to fuck, and fuck again, and corrupt, and seduce. Here was a Dark wizard who wouldn't acknowledge that he was Dark and who had personal reasons to despise Draco—and was acting more out of them at the moment than out of morality, whatever he might think.

Here was someone who would provide the same endless challenge that the accumulation of power and money did, and of whom Draco would never grow tired.

He had to possess Potter. Never mind the cost. Draco had been avoiding high costs all his life, or finding unorthodox means to pay them. He would find a way around the cost that his instincts were warning him of now: that Potter might kill him.

* * *

_Fool. Idiot. You were trying to convince him he was seducing you, and resisting him like this will only set your plan back!_

Harry shut his eyes, shivering. And it wasn't because of the shivers of desire trying to creep through him as Malfoy rubbed his erection, thanks very much, because Harry needed an emotional connection to make sex mean anything. That had always been true.

He had exploded because he could _not _stand lying beneath Malfoy and being talked down to. It was respond or have a rage attack that might result in random destructions of things in the room with wandless magic, including the bracelet he wanted to possess.

_The bracelet._

It gave him the seeds of a plan. He would challenge Malfoy to share the stored magic with him willingly, as he had promised but not done yet, with an implicit promise himself to trust and believe if Malfoy did it. There was no way he could disguise his intense hatred at the moment, but he could make up for it, and by the best of all possible methods: letting Malfoy believe he was corrupting Harry as well as seducing him.

Harry waited until he was sure that he wouldn't lash out and destroy Malfoy the way he had wanted to, and then clenched his fingers around the bracelet and pulled it out of his pocket. "I can tell this is powerful," he said. "Were you actually going to let me have the power inside it, the way you claimed you were the other day? Or was that another ruse to get me into your bed and wank me like you haven't touched another person since you were sixteen?"

Malfoy's eyes went bright. Harry relaxed, a bit. He knew the difference between anger and desire on Malfoy's face.

Perhaps _how _he knew that was a bit disturbing, but he had enough complications with considering his own reactions to Malfoy's seduction strategies. He wasn't going to go out of his way to worry about how he knew other things.

"I offered you the power if you work at my side, with me," Malfoy said. His lips barely moved, and his hold on Harry's wrists had changed to a simple pressure instead of a half-caress. He had moved his body back so that their groins no longer pressed together, either. "I thought you would have a _moral _problem taking the magic from people."

Harry snorted. "This magic is already drained. I would be a fool if I spent too much time worrying about where the resource came from when I could be thinking how to use it."

He let bitterness and frustration leak into his voice, and Malfoy smiled.

_He isn't to know where the frustration and bitterness really come from, _Harry thought, and glared up at him until Malfoy moved back and let him go. Harry had barely stood up when Malfoy seized him again, whirling him around so that Harry's back pressed tight to his chest and linking his arms together around Harry's waist.

Harry controlled his reaction to that, too. _This is all part of the plan. Remember that he has to trust you enough to teach you something, or your plan won't matter and won't work. Do what you have to do and regret later._

"Understand this," Malfoy whispered to him, breath hissing in Harry's ear like a Muggle gas leak. "I'll have no problem crippling you if you betray me. I'll never kill you. It's too much fun to own you. Push me too far and you'll find out what being _owned _means." He traced one long finger over Harry's Mark. "Do you understand?"

Harry nodded jerkily and tried to tear himself free, assuming Malfoy had made his point. But Malfoy ran his finger up Harry's chest to his left nipple and pinched it roughly, rolling it between his fingers until he had made some point known only to himself. Harry had to grit his teeth against the pleasure that impaled him.

"Good," Malfoy said, and then stepped away from him and picked up the other jade-and-silver bracelet from the drawer that Harry had opened as if nothing had happened. "This is how you access the stored magic…"

Harry paid close, furious attention, determined that he would learn all he needed to know before their attack on Robards. He had "submitted" to Malfoy for the present because he wanted revenge and freedom. The moment he had his revenge, there was no reason to stay.

_I still wish I could destroy him, but escaping is more important. _

* * *

Draco was well-content. Potter was still struggling, still dancing on the slippery slope, which was expected, but he would fall at last. No one whose eyes grew so bright with appreciation of the skills Draco was teaching could escape the pit forever.

_I will be happiest when he comes begging for me to fuck him, but keeping him willingly at my side is more important._


	8. Rising to the Occasion

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eight—Rising to the Occasion_

"Are you really his lover?"

Harry, caught out of his ripped shirt and not yet in the new one that Malfoy had brought for him, yelped and struggled swiftly into it. It didn't fit well, he thought, smoothing it down through the shoulders, or rather it was too tight. That was so much like Malfoy that Harry couldn't even comment on it. "Does no one _knock _around here?" he demanded, turning to face Lisa.

Lisa leaned on the door of his bedroom and simply gazed at him. She might never have heard the question. "Are you really his lover?" she repeated, like a Muggle doll that had just the one question to ask.

Harry had already come up with a plan for this. It would be advantageous to have the other Marked ones off-guard and believing whatever lies Malfoy wanted to feed them. There was none of them Harry would trust to help him in his plan to escape.

"Yes, I am." He let his eyes meet Lisa's for a minute, then flick away. He hoped that would convey enough of his shame and reluctance, assuming that the blush on his cheeks didn't do that all by itself.

Lisa moved further into the room, never taking her eyes from him. A moment later, her hand landed on his arm, above the Mark, and squeezed warmly. "It's not so bad, being the center of his attention," she whispered. "And I think you'll find that lots of advantages come along with it, in the short time he remains interested. He can give gifts with an obsession that makes the most persistent suitors in the outside world seem uninterested."

Harry opened his mouth to say that he didn't want gifts, but then scolded himself not to be stupid. There was a way to put Lisa on-guard instead of being that way himself, and maybe to get information in the bargain. He leaned forwards and demanded, "Were _you_ his lover, once? How quickly did he get tired of you?"

Lisa's face flamed. She coughed. Harry kept his unrelenting stare on her, thinking she would be more likely to yield if he didn't allow her a chance to recover her balance.

"Yes," Lisa said finally, her reluctance to speak seeming at least as great as Harry's own to be Malfoy's lover. "I was. He doesn't stay long, but he did pamper me and spoil me, and the association between us didn't end badly."

"Except for the part where you're still a slave," Harry couldn't resist pointing out.

"The life is better, in many ways, than the life that you may have led before coming here," Lisa said, gently, and with a faraway look in her eyes that was not at all what Harry had hoped to provoke from her. "He slept with me before he Marked me. A while before. He's a daring and ferocious lover. He takes you out of your body, and makes the whole experience so worthwhile that you don't mind surrendering."

_I don't want to surrender, _Harry thought, and clenched his fists in the shirt-sleeves, out of Lisa's sight. "He hasn't shown me anything like that yet," he said, which was true. Malfoy had simply wanked him, and Harry had had better wanks before, some from his own hand. He could find plenty of lovers among people not wanting to maim him.

"He will." Lisa gave him a mysterious smile that Harry hated on principle. "You have no idea what he'll make you feel and experience, what you'll see as you writhe under him and open your mouth to scream, to cry. I wager you that we'll be able to hear you all the way across the Valley when you give in and spread your legs for him."

Harry swallowed back his illness. He had to play along, pretend to be the grateful slave and the overwhelmed lover. "What if I don't have a need for the gifts he sends me? What if he gives me useless things?"

Lisa's look was condescending, now. "Then ask him for things that you enjoy. He's sensitive and perceptive." Harry bit his lips to keep from laughing hysterically at that last word. "He won't go on giving you presents you don't enjoy. _Tell _him what you want. He'll give you everything, and he'll let you keep them when your love affair inevitably ends."

Harry nodded with a fake smile, while he mentally changed his perception of Lisa. She might be the smartest and strongest of the Marked ones, but slavery had still affected her to the point that she idolized her lord. Maybe that was the only way she could escape the dreariness of her daily life. Maybe it was how she dealt with the inevitable fact of her slavery. Whichever it was, Harry knew that he couldn't count on her for an ally.

Lisa made a few more stupid speeches about gratitude and wonder that Harry didn't listen to, and left. That meant Harry was alone, staring at the pair of trousers Malfoy had waltzed in to give him that morning. They were some shimmery, shiny blue cloth that Harry didn't think was silk, with slits in the back and front that weren't pockets. Malfoy wanted access to Harry at any time, it seemed.

Harry made himself take off his undamaged trousers and put on the new ones. He had to play along with this, up to the point where he could use the stored magic the way he had envisioned using it.

He _had _to, no matter how sick it made him.

* * *

Draco caught his breath, and didn't try to hide his appraising stare, when Potter joined the strategy meeting he was holding with his Marked ones in one of the more pleasant squares of Fox Valley. The center of the square was a silvery fountain between low white stone walls, all of which could double as benches. The flowers planted nearby—roses, tulips, and others—were charmed to keep blooming at all seasons and shed the strongest version of their scents possible. The air around them curled and crackled with magic, the slight spells that Draco employed to keep the guests of Fox Valley caught up in drifting thoughts and languor if the magic-draining alone didn't do it. Draco didn't know about the others, but _he _enjoyed the feeling of magic sliding like feathers against his skin.

And really, what did the opinion of the others matter, compared to his?

Draco caught Potter's eye as he walked up, clad in the new clothes Draco had sent him, green shirt and blue trousers that accented his movements and his dark hair and brought out the greenness of his eyes. Thalia mumbled something, and Draco caught her gaze sharply as he gestured for Potter to sit beside him.

Thalia looked away, understanding the silent message: Potter was Draco's, and no one else's.

Draco rested a hand on Potter's knee, ignored his uncomfortable squirming, and raised an eyebrow at Mina Johnson, his Potions expert. "You were saying, Mina?"

"I have potions that can get you through most of the wards around the Ministry." Mina sat bolt upright, conveying without a word how undignified and unworthy of her she found this seat on a wall. Draco kept her mostly for her expertise, but also because she was funny to listen to and watch when he was bored. "My potions will make the anti-Apparition wards dissolve and remain down for half-an-hour's time." She paused and looked at Draco through lowered dark lashes above her violet eyes. Draco knew it wasn't her way of trying to seduce him; as far as he could figure out, she had never tried that. Rather, she was trying to show her boiling excitement and build up apprehension in other people as she delayed her announcement.

Draco allowed it, and even leaned in to listen with a little smile. Mina's addiction to drama was a minor thing next to what she could have cost him in time and trouble if she was interested in open rebellion.

_Unlike someone else I know. _Draco stroked Potter's leg, slipping his hand closer and closer to the slit in the front of the trousers. Potter went stiff, but sadly not in the way Draco wanted him to.

"I've discovered a potion that can make someone want to stay in a certain place, Lord Malfoy," Mina murmured, when she judged that enough time had passed to enhance the drama of her announcement. "It will be used on the evening of the attack—pending your approval, of course—to convince Gawain Robards to stay still."

"What?" Potter blurted, leaning forwards so that Draco's hand was practically on his cock. To Draco's grave displeasure, he didn't seem to even notice. "That's impossible. How are you going to feed it to him?"

Mina turned to face Potter, shaking her hair back and assuming a superior expression. "Only in the babyhood of Potions-brewing did one need to feed the potion to the subject," she said. "I work with air and distance. Smashing one of my vials outside a building will work, as long as I direct the fumes."

"That's impossible," Potter said again, but he sounded more uncertain. Draco tried to gain his attention with a stroke. Potter gave him a single magnificent glare from bright eyes and then focused on Mina again. "How can you be sure that Robards will be caught by the fumes and not anyone else? It'll be hard to sneak in if the entire population of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is there."

"That's where the rest of us come in," Draco said, and turned to Lisa and Victor with a nod. "You understand your parts?" He deliberately didn't look at Potter again, though he kept his hand where it was. Instead of retreating, he would show off how intelligent he was to Potter, what he could do even if Potter _wouldn't _willingly help him.

"Yes, my lord," said Lisa, with an inclination of her head and a burning glance at him that Draco didn't find entirely out of place. It seemed that Draco's taking of Potter as a lover had reminded her of her own time in his bed. Draco wondered if she would be jealous if she knew how long he planned to extend this association. "We are to invade the Ministry in the afternoon, in the guise of ordinary visitors. We are to secure a small hank of Robards's hair or clothes that will attune Mina's potion to him."

Draco smiled at her. She had not repeated his instructions exactly, but varied them enough to prove she understood. "That will do nicely."

"Lord Malfoy?" Victor wore a frown. "How long do we have to secure this piece of Robards?"

"As long as it takes," Draco said. "If we cannot manage this in one day, we will stretch it to two, and then ensure that Mina's potion takes effect on the following evening."

He couldn't risk sneaking another glance at Potter as he spoke, just to see what was going on there. Potter's face was set in what looked like a permanent frown, and his eyes darted back and forth from one Marked one to another as if wondering what strange capacity they would reveal next.

"Thalia," Draco said, and made his voice more crisp, because you had to be when dealing with Thalia. "You understand your own part?"

"To make sure that I attract the attention of anyone else who might be staying in the Department that night, and get them to chase me instead of remaining nearby as witnesses and distractions." Thalia, on the other hand, didn't vary her words, but that was all right. Draco would indulge the small quirks of his Marked ones as long as he wasn't required to tolerate outright disobedience and insubordination. "I'm to reveal myself as a jaguar Animagus, and carry enough of the residue of Dark Arts to make them anxious to capture me."

"Even then," Potter said, as if he was anxious to point out the problems with the plans they were making for the sake of _his _convenience and revenge, "how can you be sure that everyone will take off after you?"

"The next part of the t-task is mine," said Oliver, so pleased that he hardly stuttered at all. "I know that I can bring in my darlings and scare away the ones that still remain, or at least make them despairing enough that they won't interfere." He gave Draco a pleading look, like a dog asking his master if he had done well. Draco was happy to nod, and Oliver sat up straighter and looked around importantly.

"Where does that leave us?" Potter's mouth was tight with something Draco thought was disdain. It wasn't fear, if the hard undertone to his voice was real. "What are _we _going to do?" He turned and stared at Draco.

Draco smiled back at him, wondering if he had noticed that he had used the word "we" to refer to himself and Draco for the first time. Potter's eyes narrowed, but before he could reason it out, Draco said, "We're going to go in and make Robards pay for his crime, of course. We'll undo the wards on his door, and get past those defenses that you told me about. We'll make sure that he can't do anything that would seriously inconvenience us with the help of the others, but the torture…" He extended his fingers. "That's ours alone."

"Torture?" Potter was sitting up very straight now, and Draco's hand had slipped down his leg. He put it back into place, smiling serenely into Potter's eyes, and Potter gave a single nervous jerk, but didn't let that interrupt the flow of his rant. "I never agreed to that! You said we were going to get revenge on him, nothing else!"

"And this is the form of revenge that I prefer." Draco bowed his head a little, never taking his eyes from Potter. This was the first serious challenge he had got from Potter—serious, because it was in front of other people and Draco had to win to keep his Marked ones' respect—and he was ready. "If you want to do something else, then by all means, stand on the other side of the room and politely cover your eyes while I go through with this. Did you know that he's spread the word you died on a secret mission, and so while you have a hero's funeral, no one will know that you are still alive and attempt to bring Robards to justice for what he did to you? Your friends will doubtless believe him. Why should they not?"

* * *

Anger scalded Harry. He hadn't known that, no, and the idea of Ron and Hermione, who still read British newspapers in Australia, receiving the news that he was dead and having no reason to believe otherwise…

Then he pulled himself up sharply and shook his head. He still should keep Robards from torture, because—

The automatic answer to that question faded into silence inside him.

Why? He wasn't an Auror anymore; Robards had seen to that. No matter what happened, Harry wasn't going to get his job back, because he wasn't going to stand up in a court of justice and explain what had happened. Most people were going to believe Robards and not him, anyway, because he was the one who had made the disastrous mistake right before he disappeared, and because his story was mad.

What reason did he have to spare the man who had done his best to get him killed from torture?

Harry shivered and took a deep breath. He was tilting on the edge of a fall more profound than any he could come to as Malfoy's lover, he told himself sternly. Something that would stain his soul if he gave in to it, something that would make him a worse person than he could be no matter how long he spent as a slave. Yes, he was a slave, but he still had the power of moral choice. He could have given in and gone along like Lisa, or he could have been pathetically grateful to be spared the "hardness" of life like Hurston, but he hadn't. That was the point. He was different, and he was going to be different always.

But the temptation was still there, solid and unvarying. And his conscience whispered that it couldn't be his fault if Malfoy was determined to torture Robards and stopped Harry with the Mark when he tried to interfere.

Harry wavered, reached out…

And didn't fall.

"I don't think it's the best thing," he told Malfoy quietly, meeting his look and holding them no matter how hard that was. The darkness staring back at him from those grey eyes was, at least in part, his own. "The more time we take over this, the more time we give people to come back and figure out what we're doing. And Robards has defenses that I don't know about. Maybe a ward that would alert others when he experiences a certain level of pain. It's what I'd do."

For some reason, Malfoy only took a deep, almost purring breath instead of reacting with anger. He watched Harry with half-lidded eyes and moved his hand slowly up and down. Harry clenched his teeth as he felt himself respond.

_I could take you here and now._

Harry started badly as the thought appeared in his head, Malfoy sending it to him with an ease that made Harry hate the Mark all over again. Malfoy smiled at him, kept his hand in place, and turned to the other Marked ones as he nodded. "Harry has convinced me," he said. "It would indeed take too long and be too risky to stay in Robards's office past a certain period of time. We will cause him pain, but he will die before he is tortured."

Thalia nodded in what looked like relief. Lisa was glancing at Harry with a new respect. Harry didn't see the reactions of the rest, because he was staring at Malfoy, who looked back with perfect pleasantness, as he lost arguments like this all the time and didn't resent the loss.

_What the fuck is going on in his head?_

Harry reminded himself a moment later that that wasn't important, that he should be thinking about his escape plan and how he was going to implement it instead, but that _was _a moment later. He had been curious about Malfoy, had wanted to understand him, had been interested in him, if only temporarily.

Just like he was only tempted to let Robards suffer for a short time.

_If those short times add up enough, they can destroy me._

* * *

Draco had learned a new truth, a truth so astonishing and delightful that he was not sure it would let him continue to breathe.

Potter struggling with temptation, fighting back the siren call of the darkness that Draco knew lurked in his soul, was even more delicious and beautiful than he was when stalking a wizard he intended to kill.

Draco's body thrummed with response. His cock thrummed with blood. He didn't feel quite the same dizzy desperation that he had when he went to Potter's bed the other night, but he was shaking with the same intoxication, the same desire to take Potter then and there.

_The darkness is in him, not far from the surface, and I might have encouraged it to rise further with what I've had him doing for me. I'll encourage it further, and sooner or later it'll be too strong and he'll give in._

From there, Draco reckoned, there would still be many tiresome steps. Potter was liable to accuse himself and to belabor his guilt in extensive monologues. But when a stubborn resistance was broken once, it was much easier to break again, and Draco intended to let no chances pass to break it.

So he let Potter seem to conquer. He permitted Potter to "persuade" him, and even to do it in front of his other Marked ones. The important fight was not this one, where Potter had managed to force down his temptation one more time, but the next one, the one where Draco would hold out the temptation shining on his palm like a golden coin.

He waited. He let the others add their own refinements to the plan, and he let Potter press him towards almost stating what spell he would use to kill Robards. In the end, though, he wanted that to remain a surprise, so he didn't say it aloud, but gave Potter a mysterious smile and watched as the other Marked ones reacted. They knew what that smile had meant in the past for his enemies, even if Potter didn't.

When the meeting finished, his other Marked ones filed away to resume their administrative duties. Draco waited to see what Potter would do, curious which emotion would prevail with him, outrage or fear.

Potter rose from the wall and turned to face him, face so dark with blood that Draco momentarily feared for his heart. Then he took a step nearer, and Draco wanted to laugh. The bulge between his legs was not well-concealed by the trousers that Draco had chosen for him, which was, of course, one purpose of them.

"Why did you say that you were going to torture Robards?" Potter asked.

Draco arched an eyebrow. _Not the question that I thought he would ask, I admit. _"Because I wanted to," he said. "He has cost me some trouble and effort, and he could have made our introduction and our pathway to becoming lovers much smoother for both of us if he had advised me of the true extent of your capabilities. I owe him some pain for that."

Potter's throat had a lovely soft, smooth motion when he swallowed. Draco wasn't sure whether to watch that or his lips as he spoke. "Why did you give up the notion, then?"

Draco rose and advanced to meet him. Potter's eyes widened, but he didn't back away. Draco smiled, pleased with his courage, and equally pleased with the fact that his erection hadn't yet subsided. He gripped it and gave it a gentle squeeze as he halted in front of Potter and bent to his ear.

"It was a gift to you," he whispered. "I suspect that Lisa had told you by now how generous I can be with them, yes? This was something you really wanted, and I would not put you down in front of the others with a slap through the Mark so soon after announcing you as my new lover. I can give Robards a swift death because of you. Dear Harry."

He groaned the last word, and squeezed Harry's cock at the same moment as he swayed forwards so that their groins brushed.

Harry leaped back.

But not until after a moment had passed.

Draco stood where he was, letting his gaze linger on Harry's face, taking in the wide dark eyes, the too-quick breathing, the too-red lips, and the stiff cock that would give him some trouble walking.

Then he turned and walked away, his hand dipping briefly between his legs to caress himself.

But no, he didn't think he'd wank. The next time he came, he wanted the willing participation of Potter's hand or mouth.

_Not much longer now. Slowly, softly, I can close in, and he'll be mine._

* * *

Harry wrapped his arms around himself. He hated how hard he was, how weak he was.

But he hated Malfoy more, and he wrapped that hatred around himself until it was a shimmering cloak that covered his shoulders and shielded his body from any touch of warmth in his crotch.

_Not much longer now. Slowly, safely, I can work, and I'll be free._


	9. As Easy As That

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last chapter of _Wolf in the Making. _**There will be two sequels, **"Loup-garou" and "Shapeshifter's Soul," but I don't know when they'll be posted.

_Chapter Nine—As Easy As That_

Harry heard his door open as he pulled his shirt over his head, and ignored it, assuming that one of the Marked ones had come to visit him. "What, did you want to wish me good luck, Lisa?" he muttered. "I don't think I need it."

"Were you expecting someone else, then? Should I be jealous?"

Harry reeled around and nearly fell. Malfoy was striding towards him, his smile wide and bright, his hands reaching out as if he couldn't wait to touch Harry's skin even though several feet still separated them. Harry hastily fumbled for the shirt and dragged it over his head, but by the time he did that, Malfoy was right next to him, hands running up and down his chest, breath hot in his ear. Harry, the shirt tangled around his arms and the arms held up in a position that ached and probably looked stupid both at once, gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the way the hand competed with Malfoy's breath for heat.

"No need to dress on my account," Malfoy whispered to him. "If you had any idea how wonderful you look to me in any condition—"

"Unless you want to see what I look like bloody and possibly missing a leg," Harry snapped, trying to wriggle away, "then you need to let me sleep. I shouldn't be taking on the wards in the Ministry and Robards's office with less than a full night's rest."

"It's only ten," Malfoy said, as if he took Harry's argument seriously, and the shirt was gone. Malfoy spun Harry to face him. Harry had only the chance to see that Malfoy's eyes were darker than normal before he leaned in and kissed Harry.

Salt and musk in his mouth, and Malfoy's tongue pushed his own out of the way with ease, then darted back to allow Harry to chase it. Harry hissed and stood there, caught between cooperating so that Malfoy wouldn't be too upset and following his natural inclination so that Malfoy wouldn't be too suspicious.

Then he didn't get a choice, because Malfoy abruptly seized him and maneuvered him closer, while prying Harry's lips apart with his own. Now Harry couldn't breathe, unless he wanted to breathe in Malfoy spit.

He thrashed, half-panicked, and Malfoy laughed and let him go. Harry only had a moment to lie on the bed before Malfoy joined him, bending his head to fasten his mouth around Harry's right nipple.

He sucked, and once again Harry felt the stupid pleasure that he should have known about _before _this, if it was real. He lifted his hands and got one on Malfoy's forehead and one on his hair, pushing him away.

Malfoy tightened his teeth, and Harry understood the warning. If he pushed Malfoy away before he was ready to go, then he might injure himself. And if his nipples really were that sensitive and Malfoy wasn't using a spell, then it would be an inconvenience and a distraction during the time when he needed to be most focused.

Harry closed his eyes and permitted it, trying to think of something else. Ridiculously, all that came to mind was some saying he'd once heard in the Muggle world, about lying back and thinking of England.

But it was so _difficult, _when Malfoy's tongue kept stabbing and his teeth kept grinding and Harry's body kept feeling things that no one had ever told him about. The Aurors were taught many things, but not how to resist your enemy trying to seduce you. As far as Harry knew, it wasn't thought the situation would ever come up. Most Dark wizards were going to kill you or let you escape long before then.

Harry had tried to escape—tried as hard as he could. And it hadn't been enough.

Malfoy lifted his mouth, and Harry hoped that would be all for this evening, but instead, Malfoy leaned over and sucked a certain part of his neck, right under his chin. Harry cried out in startled pleasure, and even if he hadn't wanted to push Malfoy away, his hands would have flailed into nothingness. He hadn't known _that _spot existed, either.

Why was it up to Malfoy to discover all these things about him?

Humiliated, especially when he felt Malfoy's chuckle vibrate around the mouthful of flesh, Harry closed his eyes and lay still. He could do this. He would think about Robards and how wonderful it would be to see him humiliated and defeated at last. He would think about—

Malfoy's hand was on his chest, pressing down almost hard enough to crack his sternum. Harry opened his eyes in time to see Malfoy lift a leg over Harry's hips and settle down with a groan, straddling him.

Malfoy rubbed back and forth slowly, arse against Harry's groin, his smile lazy and steady and wicked. He _made _Harry—Harry didn't have a choice—think about being inside him, think about the tight grip of a man around his cock. Harry groaned and panted and sounded like a shameless idiot in his own ears.

"This much can be yours," Malfoy whispered. "Not control over me, not the kind of romance that you're probably expecting, but something richer than that, _deeper _than that. Imagine the pleasure, Potter, if you dare. Imagine the gifts that I'll shower on you as my accepted lover. I harvest the magic, and I turn it into money, and then I often simply invest the money in my next projects. But I have enough to give you anything you want."

Harry reached far down, deep down, into the sea of his mind where his conscience lived, and whispered, "You can't give me back my self-respect."

Malfoy stopped moving and stared at him.

"Yes," Harry said, and his voice was stronger, thank God, even if his hands weren't strong enough to shove Malfoy off him yet, "I'd lose my self-respect sleeping with a criminal who doesn't even _use _his money and power for anything. What kind of ambitions do you have, Malfoy? You're draining magic from people, sure, and setting up more places to do it, but then what do you do with that power? You're not trying to take over the wizarding world. You're not eliminating your enemies. The only reason that you're trying to kill Robards is because he betrayed you, not in the service of some greater plan." He managed to grin at Malfoy squatting above him. "You have the smallest dreams of any Dark Lord that I've ever heard about."

"I'm not a Dark Lord," Malfoy said, but both his expression and his voice were wooden.

"That's what I mean," Harry said. "Dark Lords—Voldemort, Grindelwald—they need something more than what you have." He leaned up and closer to Malfoy, although that made Malfoy's arse rub against him so deliciously that he nearly wanted to lie back down and rut himself into oblivion. "Ambition."

Malfoy pressed a hand into the middle of Harry's sternum again and leaned down. "I was Sorted into the House of ambition," he said, voice hard. "It seems disingenuous of you to forget that, Potter."

"Sorted into the House," Harry said, "only means the Hat recognized the potential for ambition in you. It doesn't mean you'll _have _it."

Malfoy turned his back abruptly, clambering away from Harry. Harry sat up, blinking, and touched his cock to somewhat relieve the sudden warmth and pressure gone from it. He saw Malfoy striding towards the door with jerky motions that told Harry he was also erect. He pulled open the door and turned to level a poisonous glare in Harry's direction.

"At least I wasn't wasting my days as a mere Auror, when I could have been Head," he said, "and drowning in guilt for things that weren't my fault."

Harry smiled, because those words no long affected him the way they once had. He knew that Malfoy didn't care about the state of Harry's conscience one way or the other; why should he, when it was an obstacle preventing him from seducing Harry? He would only speak those words because he could use them to twist Harry aside from his true purpose.

"It's true that I would never have been anything more than an ordinary Auror," Harry said. "But I never had pretensions of more, the way you did." He paused thoughtfully. "Or should that be _pretenses_?"

Malfoy slammed Harry's door spitefully on the way out, but that didn't matter, since Harry hadn't been asleep, and this was the last night he would spend here. He lay down, smiling despite the ache in his nipples and cock, and fell asleep quickly enough.

* * *

Draco spent the rest of the night pacing and swearing, and occasionally throwing something at the wall. His agitated thoughts, shooting through the Mark, were strong enough to summon Lisa, but Draco sent her away again. There was no one who could alleviate this surge of feeling in him—

Except Potter. Draco needed to see his eyes dazzled with admiration, needed to see them glowing with surrender as he arched beneath Draco, pierced by Draco's cock.

There was no way that Potter's words should have been able to affect him like that, except that Draco _did _intend to be more than he was someday, and he hadn't yet seen his path clear to achieving that. He had contented himself with small ambitions so far. Spreading his network of influence with the Marks. Finding and enslaving people with special talents. Creating new valleys.

Fucking Potter.

He should have a greater ambition than that, something lifelong. He had acknowledged that before this, and he had acknowledged it now that Potter's words had bitten into him like acid. Something that would make him the equal of the Dark Lords without courting their fall.

_But become great enough and the wizarding world will aim to tear you down. Even their hero couldn't escape that fate. They depended on him to be perfect, depended on him to be their moral compass, and they couldn't accept it when he made a mistake. Is that the way I want to end?_

Draco's mouth firmed. No. He had seen what happened to those who courted the crowd, both from a distance with Potter and intimately with his parents, who had gambled all on becoming popular again with the press and the Ministry—and lost. That had been one reason Draco had been content to remain small and obscure for so long. They couldn't destroy him if they didn't know about him.

But now Potter had flung a burning brand in his face, and Draco knew that Potter wouldn't consent to stay with someone who was lesser than he was, who had fewer ambitions. Draco's only way to Potter's heart was to earn his admiration, because he wasn't going to change his morals or his methods to become a person Potter would like.

Draco knew one way to begin, something he had been planning to do anyway. And so he smiled at last, and was able to stop pacing the room an hour before sunrise, and lie down in his bed, even if it was considerably emptier and colder than he had planned on earlier.

_This will work, _he thought as his eyes drifted shut. _There's no reason that it shouldn't, and no reason for me to believe I'll forever lose with him. Those who think they'll lose, often do._

* * *

Everything had worked as Malfoy had said it would. Everything.

Harry was now warier than he had been of Mina Johnson and Lisa and Victor, who could set off a potion from a distance and walk into the Ministry setting off no traps and alarms, respectively, despite the Marks on their arms. They had brought back a curl of hair from Robards's head, which Johnson frowned at before she dipped it into her potion. The potion turned purple and smoked, and then smelled horrible, like burning hair.

When she smashed the vial on the ground and nodded impressively to them, Harry had been prepared to laugh, but Malfoy gave a cold smile and sent Thalia and Hurston into motion. They acted together without hesitation, Harry thought, and that proved that they'd been slaves for so long they couldn't conceive of any freedom. They were _happy _and _proud _to serve Malfoy, as if he was somehow naturally their master.

Harry stood upright beside Malfoy, and concentrated on concealing the fear that flooded him when the Dementors emerged from their hiding places to attack the Ministry. It gave him practice at hiding his contempt for the others, too.

Then they were inside, Apparating directly to Robards's office. They would have Apparated into it, but Malfoy was wary of the wards that might explode when they did that, and Harry couldn't blame him.

It was overwhelming to be inside the Ministry again, the familiar walls around him, the familiar hum of magic caressing his skin. Harry licked his lips and tried not to think about the complementary buzzing of the bracelet in his pocket. He needed to focus his attention on peeling the wards back.

"This one first," Malfoy said into his ear, as if they were a pair of thieves who had been working together for years.

Harry nodded, and sent a burst of power through the wood. And then there was another, and another, and another, and Malfoy was beside him, sometimes using his own power, sometimes directing Harry to use his, his voice more neutral than Harry had ever heard it, his focus perfect.

It made Harry think, for a moment, of what could have happened had Malfoy remained no worse than tarnished and become an Auror. Perhaps Harry's partner—

Harry strangled the thought. It was an ugly one, a wrong one, a stillborn child that ought to be buried.

"He'll guess we're coming, of course," he said out of the corner of his mouth to Malfoy, who chuckled richly.

"Of course," he said. "But he won't know exactly who it is. And if I were him, I'd be conserving my strength, waiting to find out what kind of enemies I'm facing rather than raising ward after ward—especially when he realizes the effect of Mina's potions and that he can't escape by trying."

Harry nodded, and went back to destroying the defenses. Sometimes he needed Dark magic, sometimes normal. He could feel Malfoy studying him with delight each time he deployed Dark magic, even pressing his body against Harry's, as if he assumed that the mere touch of his skin would drive Harry mad with hunger and make him try to take Malfoy right in the middle of the floor.

_Well, he's got me thinking like him, at least, _Harry thought, as he dropped the last ward. He stepped back and nodded to Malfoy.

Malfoy pushed the door open, and a starburst of green light came towards them. Harry moved without thought, stepping into it and whipping up a shield of his own in front of him, which gripped the green light and crushed it.

When the light faded, he saw Robards staring at him with a pale face, which grew paler still when he spotted Malfoy over Harry's shoulder.

"Who's been a bad boy, then?" Malfoy crooned, and stretched his hand out in a beckoning motion, fingers stiff as if he were hooking them through handles.

Robards went to his knees, screaming. Harry followed Malfoy into the room, his heartbeat blinding him, his hand falling to finger the bracelet in his pocket. He would need to move fast when he moved.

* * *

This close to, especially in comparison with Potter, Gawain was not impressive. Of course, Draco had Marked him in the first place for his contacts and his power inside the Ministry, not his magical strength or his beauty. He looked at others for the advantages they would offer him, not the ability they had to grace his bed.

_And once I have Potter, I need not look in other directions for a bed partner._

Gawain knelt, shivering, in the middle of the floor. Draco had sent only a brief jolt of red-hot pain through the Mark, but it seemed it had caught him unprepared. He really must have believed Potter dead, Draco thought as he prowled around his recalcitrant slave in a circle, and perhaps even Draco, since Draco had not used the Mark to punish or contact him since Potter had arrived in the Valley. He had thought he was free.

His eyes were wide, his mouth wide open, a string of drool hanging from his chin. Draco reached out and touched him there, tilting his jaw gently shut.

"You have Potter to thank that I won't torture you," he whispered to Gawain. "He couldn't bear the thought, and it's true that it would take more time than is strictly necessary. I am going to tear you apart instead. Draw your limbs living from your body, and keep your heart beating until your head separates from your torso. After that, alas, even the Mark has limits." He smiled, because Gawain had always been terrified of his smiles. "Can you even imagine how much that's going to hurt?"

"Wait," Potter said suddenly.

Draco turned to him, sighing. Potter looked with wide eyes at Draco, as innocent as a child who knew nothing about Marks and Dark wizards. "Yes?" Draco asked, drawing the word out. "It will not last long, I assure you."

Potter's body tensed, and the air around him wavered as with heat haze. Draco knew he was drawing in his magic, but that didn't matter. He could use the Mark if necessary to stop Potter, and in the meantime it was as pleasant to stand next to him as it was to one of his observation lenses.

"He must die," Draco said. "Painfully. But if you would prefer to kill him, and to use some different spell, then I understand." He stepped gracefully back from Gawain. "Perhaps you can use one of those you slay Dark wizards with. You have more than enough hatred for this man to do it, I think."

Potter was still, his eyes locked on Robards's face. Robards let out a tiny whimper that he must have thought would evoke pity from Potter, but Draco knew otherwise. Potter was a predator, and this sound would bring his instincts surging to the fore.

"I offer you the choice," Draco whispered. "Kill him, if you dare."

Either Potter would yield and therefore fall closer to the "corruption" that Draco knew he feared, or he would refuse and Draco would get to kill the traitor the way he wanted to. Either way, he won.

* * *

Harry turned at bay before his anger.

He had felt close to Malfoy in the moments when they worked on the wards together. That was probably the reason he felt this way now. He had been more vulnerable. He had allowed himself to feel something like admiration for Malfoy, something like longing. He had thought things could be different.

And then Malfoy proved they couldn't be, by handing a "gift" to Harry that was poisoned all the way through, and which he probably thought Harry wouldn't recognize.

_I'm not so caught up in my moral dilemmas that I can't recognize when someone else causes them, _Harry thought, and he lifted his eyes to Malfoy's face. Malfoy was studying him with a contented expression, one lip twitching as though he was trying to suppress a smile. Harry's anger howled through his head in a whirlwind, and he registered that Malfoy didn't have his wand out.

Of course not. He had intended to kill Robards with the Mark.

Harry had his wand out, still, from working on the wards. With obsidian hatred gripping his heart, sinking claws into the flesh of his stomach and tearing, he pointed his wand at Malfoy and cried, "_Crucio!_"

The pain took Malfoy in the bowels and made him jerk like a hooked fish. He fell to the ground, shuddering, crying, his hands cleaving the air. Harry sneered down at him, and took a step forwards so that he could watch the expressions on his face better. He _wanted _to see the agony there, the closest Malfoy would ever come to experiencing the agony that he put others through with his Mark and his choices and his gifts and his _favors._

Malfoy's face was white. His eyes were rolling back and forth as if they would turn to jelly and melt down his cheeks. His hands were twitching in a way that Harry only seen when someone was hit by lightning. His voice was tearing itself to pieces.

The satisfaction lay in Harry's stomach like a full meal.

And then he turned at a sound from the side and saw Robards making his way back to his feet, though he froze when he saw Harry looking at him.

In his face, Harry saw the reflection of who he was, what he had become by using the Cruciatus Curse on Malfoy, what Malfoy had made him into.

Harry whirled around again, lifted the Cruciatus Curse on Malfoy, and cast a curse that he didn't know the formal name for on Robards in the same moment. It snapped his back and then snapped his ribs and drove the splintered sides into his lungs, piercing them in multiple places, drowning him in his own blood. It would kill him quickly, and that was all Harry cared about right now.

Robards was dying. Malfoy was still shaking from the aftereffects of the Cruciatus Curse and wouldn't immediately recover to take revenge on him. (Harry would have killed him, but he didn't know what the effect on the Marked ones would be). Harry grabbed the bracelet and pushed the jade pieces down into the silver while thinking intently of the spell he wanted to use, the way Malfoy had taught him.

The bracelet flared, a dazzling silver glow that might have shocked Harry into dropping it if he wasn't prepared for it from the practice he and Malfoy had done. Harry grabbed one of the buttons on his new shirt, Malfoy's gift, and twisted it. It came free. Harry held it near the bracelet and his wand and murmured, "_Portus._"

The stored magic began to flow into the button at the same moment as pain came welling up from the Mark.

Harry dropped to one knee and bowed his head. He had attacked through the Cruciatus once, when the wizard he'd been hunting was stupid enough to turn his back on Harry. Malfoy couldn't cause pain that intense, and he only had to endure for a few moments, just a few, until the magic completed its transfer. Harry had used it all.

Malfoy didn't cause pain as intense as the Cruciatus. Instead, it was worse, and Harry's bones shuddered and felt as if they were parting company with his flesh. His joints were cracking. His voice was frozen in his chest.

But he had cast the spell, and he was clutching the button close. That was all that mattered.

Malfoy dragged himself to his feet behind Harry, if the limping and stumbling noises were any indication. He came closer and closer, but he didn't touch him yet. That was good, Harry thought, and knew the pain he was experiencing right now would live in his mind in nightmares, for years.

"I'll break you down," Malfoy whispered. "I won't do to you what I tried to do to Gawain for his betrayal, because I think that you should suffer more, and I own you in a way that I didn't own him. I'll have you crawling at my feet and begging for me to touch you." He paused. "The pain isn't subduing you."

And the pain melted into pleasure, all the stronger because of the contrast with what had gone before. Harry wailed aloud. He could have had six orgasms joined back to back, filling him with their blinding golden pleasure, and it would have been nothing compared to this.

He would remember this forever, too.

"I'm the only one who can do this for you," Malfoy whispered. "I want you to remember that. I want you to remember that you'll never feel this at anyone else's hand. Anyone else in your bed won't satisfy you. You _need _me."

The stored magic ran out, and the bracelet clanged to the floor, empty.

At the same moment, Harry's button, now a Portkey with enough energy to span the distance between continents, whirled him away and to Australia, to Ron and Hermione's house.

The pleasure stopped at once. Harry clung to consciousness grimly as he went through the transition, and only released it once he felt a sturdy floor beneath him and heard Hermione's echoing scream.

* * *

Draco stood where he had been when Harry vanished, eyes locked to that place for long seconds. He had known what was happening the moment the colors manifested, but he had not wanted to admit it.

Harry had _tricked _him. Draco had thought for certain Harry was using the stored magic to power up a spell that would kill Draco or himself. And instead, he had simply used it for a means of escape, and the pain spell as a distraction, which Draco had never anticipated.

Draco glanced at the dead Robards and nodded once. It was good that Harry had killed him. For one thing, anyone looking for traces of the magic in here would probably recognize Harry's power, and that would render him outcast and outlaw—if anyone believed he was still alive.

For another, Draco had a good idea, now, of how Dark Harry was, how strong, how fast. Draco had never seen anything like the deployment of two powerful spells, one an Unforgivable, in the single second Harry had cast them.

How much worth pursuing.

Draco walked calmly out of the building to rejoin his Marked ones where they waited. He was already walking better; the Cruciatus had not lasted long before Harry realized what he was doing and stopped it. Draco knew he would take no permanent damage.

But that was a lapse, a break, in Harry's resistance to torture. Draco would have preferred him to choose a different test subject, but at least he was wise enough to recognize the break and what it meant.

Harry had fled. Well, there were only a limited number of places he could have gone, and Draco would find him.

The Mark did not work over immense distances; it had never been designed to. Since Draco could compel obedience through it, there was no reason he couldn't keep his Marked ones next to him if he wanted.

But Draco would find Harry. He would bring him back. And he would master him, and see him crawling at his feet yet.

Harry probably thought they were finished.

_I meant all the promises I made to you, Harry. Including the one I made when I said that I would never let you go._

_I keep my promises._

**The End.**


End file.
